Wake yourself up!

What sound does your alarm make when it goes off in the morning? No matter what pleasant tone I choose for mine, it always sounds pretty loud and rude to me. I am always convinced it went off in error, that for some reason I set it for the middle of the night. But no...it really is time to get up. I want to hit the snooze button. Sometimes I do. Sometimes more than once. And I know you do too.

While getting up late might result in some minor inconveniences or make my morning more stressful than it has to be, it probably won't be life-changing. But I've been praying really hard lately for a particular segment of the body of Christ: those who are content with hitting the snooze button on their faith.

I read these verses the other day and they burned in my heart:

"Wake up, wake up! Put on the strength of the LORD's power. Wake up as in days past...wake yourself, wake yourself up! Stand up, Jerusalem!...put on your strength, Zion!...Stand up, shake the dust off yourself!...You have forgotten the LORD your Maker." (Isaiah 51:9-17, 52:1-2, selected, HCSB)

See, we can hit the snooze button on our faith by just going through the motions. Church on Sunday. Life for six days. Repeat.

But God made each of us for a unique purpose here on earth. Our lives, our walks of faith, mean something in eternity. We were made to be part of the "us" that is the community of believers down here on earth. We were made for intimate, personal, daily relationship with our Creator through His Son Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. We were made to know and walk with Him every day.

I refuse to be ordinary or normal in my walk of faith. Yes, I spiritualize everything, which causes no end of groaning from my sons (and ask one of my future daughters in law what angle I took when I overshot Siri's directions on the way to a baby shower). Yes, I get up in the dark every morning and read and pray through the dawn. Yes, I really do set my cell alarms with hourly prayer reminders on busy days. But I want to leave this earth walking in all that God made me to do and be while I'm here for this breath called life. 

"But Moses entered the thick darkness where God was"--Exodus 20:21

Do I have it all together? A firm and quick no. My family will tell you that I fail every single day in any number of areas. And I'm often shy in front of others and have a hard time speaking what God speaks in my head and heart--which is why He made me a writer, I guess. I yell at my kids, get grumpy with my husband, and am often blindsided by fears or doubts. 

But that's just the point---I'm no different from anyone else. 

I don't want anyone to walk away from church on Sunday and go through a busy week and then come back next week for a fill up. God wants to be our everything. He wants to walk and talk with us and fill us in all the ups and downs of our days. To imprint His Word on us when we open it every day. To hear our prayers, whether they're for a parking space or a dying loved one.

Don't leave Him in church on Sunday morning, hit the spiritual snooze button, and "forget the LORD your Maker" till you walk back in next week. 

You, too, can have a heart that burns for---whatever God made your heart to burn for. You too can fall in love with His Word, worship for real, connect with Him, hear His voice.

Want more than you've got in your walk right now? Ask for it! Get down on your knees and ask Jesus to fill your mind, heart, soul, and strength with oomph for what He put you on this earth to do. Ask Him to give you the Holy Spirit to sanctify you and teach you. Then

• Read your Bible every day--even if it means getting up in the dark or spending lunch at your desk. 
• Pray for your family--set alarms on your cell if you need to! 
• Worship Him--put on praise music at your desk or in your home or through your headphones. 

Wake yourself up! And if you do, message me and tell me what happened. I'm praying for you!

BOOK REVIEW: Stay

I loved this book.

I'm pretty busy, so sometimes it takes me a while to get through a book, even a really good one. However, when a book really, really grabs me I am known to shove everything else away so I can climb into it...and that's what happened when I began reading Stay, by Dave Burchett. Stay is an easygoing, conversational recounting of the spiritual lessons Burchett learned through his two dogs, Hannah and Maggie.

This actually makes such superior sense. Why hasn't there been a book like this before? I've often thought, as the owner of four (yes, four--though one actually belongs to my son and his fiancee) dogs, that there are spiritual lessons in the relationships among us. Burchett grabbed his pen and journal and put them down on paper to share with us.

The first lesson is perhaps the most significant. As Burchett's wife Joni battled cancer, Hannah was steady, sure, and never condescending. She was a precious, visible reminder of God's closeness to their family as they traveled through the valley of the shadow of death.

There are other lessons. For instance, watching Hannah shake excess water off her body one day when she emerged from the water, Burchett spiritualizes us to "shake off the lies." The enemy of our soul assails us, drenches us if you will, with lies. We have to learn to shake them off, remembering to "step back, be still, and listen for the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit."

Burchett learned another critical lesson from Maggie. On the first day of her obedience training (and she needed obedience training!), the instructor said something that truly preaches: "First of all, you have to teach her to sit and stay. When she is sitting, she can't jump and misbehave." Yup. Application? "..when I abide (the biblical version of "sitting") in Christ, I am empowered to resist sin." Amen!

If you love God and you love dogs, read this book. It is sweet and delightful as it speaks so loudly about our walks of faith. You can visit Burchett's blog here.

I received this book for free from Tyndale Publishing in exchange for a fair review.