‘Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.’

If I didn’t already know my propensity to sleepwalk through life, I’d probably take offense at Jesus’ suggestion that I’m apt to doze off and miss something important — something utterly life-changing.

But, perhaps like you, I do know all-to-well my tendency to overlook the subtleties of life — the simple pleasures that beg my thanksgiving, the delicate revelations that bid my attention, the gentle nudges of the Spirit that seek a willing response. How easy it is to sleep through it all!

Yet, Jesus says we’re to keep awake, to pay attention, to be prepared for the Kingdom’s presence among us — looking not only for God’s activity in the midst of life, but also looking for our own opportunities to join in the wedding feast.  Will we be awake when the time comes? Or will be caught snoring on the sofa?

During the next two months, our Sunday morning conversations (9:15am) will be focusing on the theme of “testimony” from Butler-Bass’ book — looking especially at our own spiritual autobiographies to discover the story of God’s past activity in our lives in order to better comprehend how that story might continue to unfold in our present and future.

It’s a way of learning to ‘keep awake’ — to ‘read the signs’ — and to respond, in faith, to a God who calls us not to sleep through life but, rather, to wake up and to engage it fully, faithfully, and with eyes wide open.

So let the yawning and stretching begin as you complete the sentence — “I first became aware of God in my life when…..”