WAKE UP! Ephesians 5:10-14

Ephesians 5:10-14 (New Living Translation)

10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. 13 But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, 14 for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said,

“Awake, O sleeper,
rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.”

I don't know about you but this daylight savings time is totally messing up my sleeping schedule! I am a paranoid freak the day that you are supposed to set your clocks forward or backward. Since i work on Sunday mornings, it is quite apparent if I forget that very important task. I panic.... and realize how much I depend on my cell phone alarm to wake me up. I am so afraid that my phone alarm will let me down that I don't sleep at all. I wake up every hour on the hour and check the clock to make sure that I didn't over sleep...which is silly because I don't sleep at all the night I am supposed to spring forward or fall back. Then it just becomes a vicious cycle where I am wanting to sleep when I am supposed to be awake and I am awake when I am supposed to be asleep.

I had the hardest time waking up this morning as a result of this springing forward horrific sleep cycle. I was in bed with my eyes closed and my mind creating hostage style negotiations. I knew I needed to wake up and start the day..... but I also knew that if I just kept my eyes closed that I would fool my head into thinking I can sleep another hour. Does anybody else do that? (Please say you do this)!

Its hard to open our eyes sometimes. I thought my life would be so much easier as an adult. I thought I would be able to do more to help others, that I would be able to have enough self control to stay away from things that are displeasing and that evil would be something that would just pass with age. Instead I just learned how and when to close my eyes when I am faced with evil in the world. Adults face just the same amount of peer pressure and temptation that teenagers do... we are just better at hiding it and explaining it away.

This scripture gives us a to do list that would put any to do list to shame.

To do:
1. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.
2. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.
3. “Awake, O sleeper,
rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.”

Whew! That is so tough to even read, let alone put into action. When we don't do these three things, it is as if we are laying down in our beds with our eyes closed and negotiating and excusing our actions and reactions. Rarely do I ask " God is the fact that I am talking about somebody behind their back pleasing to you?" instead I tell God "I am not really talking behind their back... I just want somebody's opinion". Rarely do I expose when something dark and evil is happening..... instead as hard as it is for me to admit it... I am usually taking part in the evil or do everything I can to pretend I don't see it.

Paul tells us in this scripture to open our eyes! WAKE UP! Face the evil head on and expose it! Don't just lay there... do something! We might think we are fooling ourselves into thinking we need the rest and that things aren't happening outside of our eye lids...... but the world is passing us all by and we have the choice to wake up and experience the light of Christ. When we close our eyes to evil... we close our eyes to Christ's light.

I have a big day ahead of me... but as I am starting to create my to do list for the day... I am going to include these three things. I am going to sip on my coffee and WAKE UP from my closed eye and sprung forward self and soak in the light of Christ that helps us do all things.... even face evil. :)