Starbucks Shake-up and the Sleepers

A few weeks ago I had quiet a rude awakening at Starbucks. I could tell you the whole, dramatic story but I’m going to shorten it.

Basically, I was with a friend at Starbucks, just chillin’, when a once-in-a-lifetime, God-given, divine moment, passed by. The rude part? I didn’t even notice until afterwards. Until I was lying in bed, trying to sleep. It hit me so hard, I was up half the night praying the girls blood wouldn’t be on my hands, that God would send someone else to teach her His love. No joke. That one, single missed moment kept me up late a few nights.

The pain of seeing a moment after its passed is, in my opinion, harder than seeing the moment and not seizing it due to fear. But it was the awakening I needed. It made the message of Romans 13:11 real to me. In Romans it basically says to love, knowing that now is the time to awake out of slumber, for our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

Oh, how true.

That day was only the wake-up call for me. It shocked me into a realization that I hardly need prayer for moments to minister; I’m in bad need of prayer to have sight. To have ears. To have a sensitivity to the moments that are flying by. Since that night in Starbucks, I can name several more times I missed chances to use my voice. In fact, there were several chances that night alone.

That was the night God said “Hey, hey you…

Wake UP!”

Revelation 3:1-2 says, “I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive- but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, after that push-start, I’m dragging myself out of the bed of spiritual slumber and asking God to wipe the sleepiness from my eyes. More and more often, I’m remember to look for those moments. See, in spur-of-the-moment things, I don’t usually have or take the time to let fear set in, so if I’d just been awake at that Starbucks moment, I most likely would have said something.

My point? I did not, and do not, need more moments to minister. I need more awareness to see and seize the chances already before me. I highly doubt fear is our biggest problem. I mean really, have you looked at this generation?! We’re a bunch of loud-mouth dare-devils. Counting adrenaline, and spurred by the Holy Spirit, we’re invincible. Think before you speak, yes; but when the Holy Spirit tells you something- do it!

Again, I highly doubt fear is our biggest problem. Our slumber is. Oh, we the sleeping. We are not fully dead, but we slumber day in and day out.

Shane Claiborne said, “Jesus did not come simply to make bad people good. Jesus came to bring dead people to life.” Get this, before a person comes to Christ, they are dead. In Christ, we are given life. Jesus said they that believe will do even greater works than He. So we are called to spiritually, as well as psychically, wake the dead. Yet how can a sleeping person raise the dead?!

In the church, we have the resources to the Gift of Life. We should hardly be dead when we have so many Pastors, services, and books feeding us the Word. Yet we’re so close to slipping into death, because we’re sleeping. A sleeping body needs to wake up and eat, than exercise; exercise your faith. Breathe in God, breathe out godliness.

I honestly just encourage you to start looking for opportunities to reach out. Learn to become aware. From being a little more gracious to the waitress that brings your food, picking things up for people when they need help, to when you get the small chance just saying, '”Hey, Jesus love you.” Even tiny, tiny stuff like adding ‘God’ to ‘bless you’. (That makes it 'God bless you’, in case you didn’t know.)

I’m no expert, I still miss a lot. Right now I’m trying to train myself into the habit of saying ‘God bless you’, I’ve gotten into the lazy habit of shortening it to ‘bless you’. I guess sleeping people are lazy. But I had a earthquake moment at Starbucks that scared me out of bed and gave me fear of people not receiving Christ because of me. A stronger fear than the fear of them thinking I’m a nut.

So hopefully all that made sense, and didn’t run circles. Hopefully it meant something. I hope it gives someone the wake-up call they need without the pain of missing a chance to show God’s love.

Wake up, become aware.

(Oh, and here’s one more extra tid-bit of something I learned. You might have notice its been a long while since the last post. Problem- I was trying to hard. I was looking for something to write, a dinner to feed my readers. But only when I dropped that search, and just sought God, I found He had dinner prepared for you already. And for me. It was something He’d shown me weeks ago, and had been sitting in front of me the whole time. Just so you know, God’s a much better cook than me.)

Sunlight, Daybreak

I just found this music video through another blog and wanted to share it.  The band is called Reilly and this is their song Sunlight.  Not really sure what to say, there's just something about it that's good.  I wanted to post the lyrics but I wasn't able to find them, though I did take the time to write part of a verse that stood out to me.

"You resurrect me, You rearrange me,
You make me heart beat to another symphony
And You pursued me, like You think I’m worthy
Oh Savior, now I know that I do not deserve this."

Enjoy!

Prepare to be Kidnapped

I recently took part in a kidnapping.  But hold up and listen to the story before you start calling the police.

It was the big eighteen.  It had become common among the local group of friends to kidnap one another on the persons birthday.  Her best friend told her she was going to do something big for her this year.  Thus she prepared. Dressed, hair, makeup - they could blindfold her and carry her off any moment.  And even if she wasn’t physically ready, she had the mind-set.

But the week of her eighteenth birthday passed with great disappointment- she was never blindfolded, gagged, and tossed into the back of a car to be carried off to an unknown destination.

Fast forwarding!!!

Two weeks later, on a simple Saturday afternoon, three of her friends burst in her room, scaring her out of her shoes(well, okay, she wasn’t wearing shoes).  She was half ready, preparing to go somewhere else with the family.  But instead the three friends/kidnappers forced a black-and-white checkered blindfold over her eyes.  She was kidnapped, in that moment, never to return home.

 

Until midnight that night, but that's besides the point…

 

As I thought about this story today, I was focused on the preparation of our main character, who I’ll add happens to be one of my best friends.  The week of her birthday, or around this time, its been said she was prepared for what might come.  So as I’m thinking about this the thought hit me.  Wow, what an illustration of us as Christians waiting for Christ’s coming!

Are we all ready and made-up during the ‘birthdays’ in our lives?  The birthdays being the times of emotional revelations.  Maybe when a guest speaker comes or we go on a retreat.

Or maybe a birthday of an easy time in your life, where you’re ‘so thankful God’s got His hand in everything’.  Then hard times come and you fall back.  As you blame it on God, you stop preparing yourself everyday.   You stop with your devotions.

I think we hear so often to be prepared for the coming of Jesus.  But like the girl waiting for her kidnapping, preparing each day for the (special?) occasion.  After time passed she wasn’t constantly concerned or maybe thinking about being kidnapped, but this doesn’t mean she stopped preparing for things.

Back in the story, when we broke in and stole her away, she had been getting ready- just not for the main event.

Do we do this?  Do we prepare ourselves, but for something other then the main event, for the coming of the King of Kings?  Do we sit down and do our devotions to seek the heart of our Lord; or so we have scripture to brag about when we’re hanging with the ‘cool Christians’?  Do we do it to get convicted, clean ourselves out, and recollect a passion for Christ; or just for the nice, quiet time it gives us?

Now rein in your roving mind and dive past the surface for a moment.  You probably read all this thinking, “Rapture, rapture!”  That’s fine, nice outlook.  Now narrow your mind, look at this very moment.

I’m not asking if your ready for the rapture, I’m asking if your ready for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Are you, are we, ready for the Lord to take control at any given moment?  Can we prepare ourselves, in our bible reading, in our prayer, in our worship, to the point that we’re so sold out that if He says go, our feet move without thought.  Can we prepare ourselves now, in this moment, for what He wants to do in this very instant?

Can we constantly be prepared to have our comfort zone, our pride, our selfish will, kidnapped from us all for the sake of Jesus’ name?