I refer to it as my ‘awakening’. 

 It was my ‘burning bush moment’. 

 You might say it was as close to having a ‘Lazarus Experience’ as one can have where you hear His voice call you out of a tomb where you have laid in darkness and stench. 

 That is what a body experiences when it dies. 

 I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s been almost 23 months now. I remember that morning as if it was yesterday. 

 The beginning of March 2020, spring break was just starting and I knew the week after spring break I was about to get busy, busy, busy over the next three months shooting school spring pictures, ball teams, weddings, events, etc. I was opening a drawer to get all my tax info together so I could take care of that before I got too swamped with work. 

 In the back of that drawer, I had a very old set of bible audio teachings that had sat there for years. From time to time, I had flirted with the idea of getting them out to revisit. But I knew it was no small undertaking to listen and study them. They were not ‘light spiritual snacks’. There was a drill, of sorts, woven through them that bore deep into a hard heart like one might use to drill through the earth in search of oil and gas. I’ve joked in the past that I’d rather just have a colonoscopy and a root canal on the same day than to get back into those. 

 My heart had grown cold and hard over the years. I’m talking about my spiritual heart. Not my personality. My heart. I would say that the average person that may have gotten to know me in the last decade or so would have never been able to tell the difference. Others, who knew me years before…could tell. My light had gone out. There was no ‘fire’ in my soul. I knew how to ‘honor God with my lips’, but my heart was in a different place. 

 It happens. I make no excuse for it. It’s a gradual thing for many of us. It can be so subtle, over time. The writer in Hebrews warned about being careful to “give earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away’.” (2:1) 

 Drift away…is a good description. 

 Have you ever been out on the water, maybe on an air mattress or in a small boat…you get distracted or close your eyes for a few moments and then look up…and you are shocked as to how far you drifted from where you were? 

 It happened to me. Yes…I use to pastor a church in the area years ago. It’s an easy ‘routine’ to get caught up in…and lose your way in. I did. I lost my way. I hit a wall. The ‘light went out’ and I wasn’t sure how to find the switch to turn it back on. 

 When I look back on my 40’s, I refer to it painfully, as my ‘decade of darkness’. I’ll be 62 tomorrow. 

 I would like to tell you prior to 'that moment' that I had been in a season of fasting and prayer and studying scripture and seeking the face of God some 24 months ago. 

 But I wasn’t. I was just busy…caught up in life, knew that God was ‘out there’ somewhere…did my best to attend church and do what I could to help out…pay my tithes, join along in the songs, take part in small gathering….you know…all usual stuff that gives the appearance that you are a good Christian. 

 But I knew I was dead, inside. 

 And then it happened. 

 I reached in to the drawer to sort through papers when I heard His voice. 

 It was just two words:

 “It’s Time.” 

 And I knew exactly what that meant. 

 I cannot tell you why then…or why me. 

 I feel at times like that blind man in John 9 whose eyes Jesus opened. He really didn’t have a lot of good answers for all those questions folks had for him. He just knew he was blind and Jesus came by one day and ‘turned the light on’ for him. And he could see. 

 That divine moment, changed the trajectory of my life these past two years. 

 Back in 2019, when I was 59, on several occasions, I had this ‘premonition’ (for a lack of a better word) a sense that as I quickly approached the decade of my 60’s, that it was going to be different. Change was coming. But I also remember at the time not even really associating it as a ‘spiritual’ thing. I thought maybe my business was about to take off or grow. Maybe it was going to be a decade of illness or relocating. 

 I had no idea. A ‘spiritual awakening’ was not on my radar. 

 But that is exactly what happened. 

 He drove me back into His word where I experienced a ‘power wash hosing down’ like I have never known. Years and layers of ‘junk’ were washed away. My heart was washed and broken and cleansed and renewed and reborn and made alive…again. 

 This all began…the week before our world began to unravel with this virus outbreak that changed our country and world. You explain the timing of it all…I certainly can’t. Best I can tell these days…He’s given me a limited mission…and message. I’m not looking for a pulpit nor even remotely flirting with the idea of a return to pastoring. My heart is just burdened for wandering, stray sheep who know something is not right and they are just tired of routine and walking in a form of godliness. 

 Something within them cries out there is more but have, like I did…pretty much given up hope of ever finding those green pastures and still waters again. 

 Yes…this is a tad different of a post today I share with you. But allow me to leave you with a few references from your bible to reflect on. 

 Most of the church world, as it always has over the centuries, believes we are in the ‘last days’. I don’t know about any of that…I have no revelation of any coming ‘rapture’. But this I know from what I read in my bible: Matthew 25 shares the condition of the church before the bridegroom returned during a time of spiritual darkness…they had fallen asleep. (vs. 1-13) 

 Paul writes of a great ‘falling away’ from the faith before the Day of the Lord. (2 Thess 2:3). He would warn of great deception where believers would be seduced by doctrines of demons, no longer enduring the true gospel of Jesus and sadly, following ‘another Jesus and gospel’. (2 Cor 11; 1 Tim 4:1) 

 Jesus warned repeatedly of an increase of lawlessness would cause men’s heart to hardened and that many would come in His Name and many would be deceived. 

 You might say if the majority of the church world was not deceived or fallen away, then they would be sleeping before His return. 

 And this I know…deceived people don’t know they are deceived nor do sleeping people know they are asleep. 

 You might take a peek at Revelation 3 where Jesus was addressing the condition of two ‘thriving churches’ that really seemed to have it going…and He clearly rebukes them telling them they are ‘dead’ or are clueless to how wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked they are’. (Rev 3:1, 17) How does that happen…where a group of ‘believers’ drift so far to the point they think they are on ‘top of their game’ with God…and have no idea how far they have fallen. (Rev 2:5) 

 Jesus tells us prior to His return that it will be just like the days of Noah…people ‘eating, and drinking, and giving in marriage, (which are not necessarily bad things) and then the floods came and took them away (not rapture) and they were not even aware of it until it was too late. (Matt 24:38) 

 Matthew 22 shares a parable where servants were sent out by the king to call those invited to this big and upcoming wedding…and people made light of it…were not willing to come…had ‘other things’ to tend to.(vs. 1-5) 

 I have no stones to throw at anyone. I’ve been there. Believe me, I am well acquainted with that place. I also know the mercy of God to have been awoken up from my own personal slumber. And I’m grateful for this ‘renewed’ walk of faith and learning all over again what it is to abide in Him. I just want everyone else to experience this as well. 

 I just struggle at times with how to effectively awaken people. I remember over the years, raising three daughter, on occasion going in to ‘wake them up’ in the morning, for school maybe. And they did not want to be awakened. There has also been those times when my wife’s alarm did not go off, and I nudged her asking her if she needed to be up and she jumped out of bed thankful that I had awoken her so she could …get ready. 

 “Get ready”. That will preach. Finish up this post with a visit to Matthew 25:1-13. 

He's calling.