Have you ever paused to think about all the things God does while we sleep? The Bible is full of examples of dreams and visions that come to people while they’re in their beds. From Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph to the prophets like Isaiah and Joel; and then of course, in the new testament we have Joseph and the magi starting us off with instructions and warnings in their dreams too.

And the disciples. More than once, they’re fighting sleep in the worst possible moments. Let’s take a look at Luke 4:1-2 though…

About eight days after he had said this, Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up on a mountain to pray. ²⁹ And while he was praying, the appearance of his face underwent a change, and his clothing became dazzling white. ³⁰ Suddenly, there were two men talking with him, Moses and Elijah, ³¹ who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which would come to pass in Jerusalem. ³² Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake they beheld his glory and the two men standing beside him.

I’ve read this passage countless times, but I hadn’t paid much attention before to the fact that the disciples were fighting sleep here. They were dozing. Groggy. Enough asleep that they had to “come fully awake,” but not so deeply that they were completely oblivious to their surroundings. And weren’t they glad?!

Had they been more deeply asleep, they would have missed seeing Christ transfigured. They’d have missed beholding the glory of God. They’d have missed that miraculous appearance of Moses and Elijah.

Later in the Gospels, they are again with Jesus while he’s praying, and this time they are truly asleep. They do miss out–they miss the opportunity to keep watch with their Savior in his most wretched hour. They miss being true friends and brothers in that moment. They earn a rebuke–“Can you not watch even one hour?”

I get it. It’s understandable. They’d just hiked up a mountain…had a big meal after a long day of preparation… They were tired. Worn out. Exhausted. They wanted to stay awake, but their bodies betrayed them. They were tired. So tired.

We’ve all been there. And physically, this is unavoidable. We have physical bodies, and they require rest. God knows that–he designed us that way. He’s used it, time and again, to His purposes and His glory. He does speak through dreams and work on our hearts while our minds are still. He uses that time of rest to restore us.

But here’s the thing: there’s a time for rest. And there’s a time for keeping vigil with Him.

Paul warns us in Philippians that many are living as enemies of Christ. That they’re more concerned with the call of their bodies–what food they’ll eat, what clothes they’ll wear, what earthly glory they’ll achieve–than with the things of God. He tells us that when we make our stomach our god, we’ll ultimately find only destruction. He tells us to focus on the heavenly things, and then we’ll find restoration for these tired and broken bodies.

There is a time for rest. And there is a time for keeping vigil with Him.

My friends, we must all find rest, yes. But we must be careful to find it in Christ. We must be seeking the rest he gives, the kind that we find in communion with Him, not in our own earthly ideas. We must be vigilant, always, in every moment–even while we sleep–seeking and being open to whatever He reveals.

Because if we sleep too deeply in this life, we’ll miss it. We’ll miss his appearances in our lives. We’ll miss his glory revealed. Even when it’s right in front of us.

I know I’ve had times in my life when I felt like I was sleepwalking. Going through the motions but not really aware. So determined to just get through another day that I don’t really see what it brings.

I think we’ve all had (or will have) those times. Times of grief or mourning. Times of illness and pain. Times of anxiety and worry. Times when this is so much, we can’t even think about that.

But know that even when we succumb to that numbness, that oblivion, Jesus is still there. Praying in the garden. Sweating blood on our behalf. Taking on the ultimate pain so we can be spared it. Praying for us.

When we pray in the name of Jesus, that means we’re joining our prayers to his…that means he is praying for us to the Father. Every cry of our hearts, every sleepy murmur, every wordless yearning–our Savior takes that and presents it, pure and as it should have been said, even if we said it wrong, to God.

While we’re sleeping, he’s working. While we’re sleeping, he’s praying. While we’re sleeping, his glory is being made manifest.

And then, my friends…then we have only to open our eyes and see it.

Yesterday was the official start of Lent. Depending on your faith tradition, perhaps you marked it with ashes and fasting…perhaps you took some special time for prayer…perhaps you decided to give something up for the next 40 days, or add something into your faith life…or perhaps you didn’t even realize it was Ash Wednesday and don’t observe Lent.

I grew up in the United Methodist church; we had an Ash Wednesday service, and while it wasn’t obligatory to give up anything for Lent, I usually did as a teen. That tradition got away from me when I had small children, but in recent years I’ve taken to viewing the season of Lent as one meant for contemplation; one meant for dwelling on the sacrifice our Lord made for us and preparing ourselves for it; one meant for emulating through some form of fasting of my own the 40 days He fasted in the wilderness before beginning His public service, in the hopes that it will prepare my heart for the next year of service to Him.

This is the passage I find myself contemplating as a new season of Lent begins:

Yet even now, says the Lord,
    return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.
¹³ Rend your hearts and not your garments,
    and turn back to the Lord, your God.
For he is gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger, rich in kindness,
    and always prepared to relent from punishing.
~Joel 2:12-13

The above-quoted passage from Joel is the liturgical reading for Ash Wednesday, and I think it’s a great one for speaking to the purpose of the season. It isn’t about foregoing chocolate. It isn’t about whether or not you eat meat on Fridays, per se.

It’s about our hearts. It’s about not just looking at the sin around us, but about admitting the sin within us. It’s about ripping those hearts to pieces and laying them before God on the altar.

Rend your hearts.

Rend is a word we don’t use much these days, so it’s easy to just skip right over it, knowing it means “to tear.” But it’s more than that. According to Merriam-Webster, rend means:

This thing we’re called to do to our hearts…it’s not a gentle process. It’s not easy. It’s not a matter of going to a service or jotting down a note to yourself. This rending isn’t about saying, “Oh, right. Sorry, God.”

It’s violent. It’s painful. It’s destructive.
It’s supposed to be.

Why? Because being penitent means breaking apart the stubbornness inside us, cracking open the walls we’ve built around our sin to keep others (or ourselves) from judging us on it. Being penitent means shattering each and every thing that stands between us and God…and then laying those pieces before him as our offering.

This is what God calls us to do. Not just during Lent of course, but all the time. Whenever we become aware of something standing between us. Whenever His Church has stumbled or faltered and made the world leer at God because of us.

Wait, what?

That’s right. When you look at the Old Testament calls to penance, they aren’t just calling the idol-worshipers to repent–they’re calling the faithful to repent too. On behalf of their neighbors, sure, but also for their own sakes. Because we rise and fall together. We sink or swim together. We cannot go merrily about our way and blame everyone else for all the trouble in the world. We need to repent for every word we speak that we shouldn’t, and for every silence we hold when we should speak. We need to repent for every time we judged someone as undeserving of redemption.

The other week in church, the pastor said something that stuck with me. “We are called to judge–yes, we are. We are called to name sin for what it is…and then to judge the sinner as worthy of redemption.”

Do we? Do we look at our enemies and call them “Beloved of God!”? Do we try to turn them toward the truth because we love them and want them to be saved? Or do we just want to stop them?

There are 39 traditional days of fasting between now and the holiest day of the year, when Christ defeated death and the grave and sin. How are we going to spend them?

Are we going to spend those days living for ourselves…or for Him?

 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
~ Isaiah 6:8

We all know that verse, right? There are songs about it. It’s a key verse for missionaries around the world. It encapsulates the eagerness that we as followers of the One True God ought to feel. I’m here, Lord! Right here! Send me!

But have you read (or do you remember) the passage leading up to that eager response from the prophet? In a vision, he’s brought into the very throne room of God, where he sees the Lord sitting on a throne, His robes taking up the whole chamber. He was surrounded by seraphim, who were singing of His glory. Seraphim who used wings to cover their own faces and feet as well as to fly, knowing they were unworthy to look upon the face of the Almighty.

And Isaiah, one of the greatest prophets of all time, literally quaked in his shoes. Isaiah, whose calling was to give the words of the Lord to the people, knew he was doomed. He wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t worthy to be in God’s presence. Here is his response:

“Woe is me! For I am lost;
for I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

In the face of the perfection and majesty of the Lord, this man–set apart by Him for holy work already–knew that basic truth that we all must face. He wasn’t good enough. His lips, the things used to give those words of the Lord to the people, weren’t good enough. Weren’t righteous enough. He knew he was in that throne room for a purpose, to receive some instruction from the Lord, and he wasn’t worthy. More, the people weren’t worthy to receive such a word.

The perfection and majesty of the Lord demand we recognize our own failings. That we become so struck by them that we cry out and weep and perhaps even give all up for lost. We see a similar reaction in Simon Peter when he’s called to follow Christ, when he hauls up those nets bursting with fish and falls at the feet of Jesus.

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
~ Luke 5:8b

Sin cannot stand before God. The unworthy cannot survive in the face of the Worthiest of Our Praise. But notice that neither of these two men ran away–because while infinitely aware of their own unworthy natures, they were also infinitely drawn to that perfection. They wanted to be able to stand before Him. They wanted to be made worthy.

In the passage in Isaiah 6, one of the seraphim takes a live coal and touches it to Isaiah’s lips. Just reading the words, maybe we skim right over it to get to the good part, where he says, “Here I am!” But take a second to let that sink in. When Isaiah declares himself unclean, God’s reaction is not to say, “Oh, you’re fine. All’s forgiven. Go on, now.”

No. God’s response is not just to cleanse him, but to cauterize. To sear. To brand. He cleanses with fire, the kind that makes a man scream in pain. But the impurities are gone, then. Not just washed away, burned away. Only then does the Lord ask who He shall send. Only then can Isaiah replace his hesitancy and fear with joy and eagerness and offer himself up.

In the Gospel account, Jesus certainly doesn’t take a live coal to Peter’s lips. He doesn’t even say his sins are forgiven. But he says something just as hard: “Follow me.” He’d just helped Peter pull in the biggest catch of his career, the sort that is made for fish stories, right? And what does He demand? Leave it. Walk away. Don’t look back. Follow me.

And they did. That’s why we know who Peter and Andrew, James and John, Isaiah are. We know because they obeyed. The underwent the trial by fire. They offered their lives and efforts and possessions to God, accepted His painful cleansing, and followed.

I talk a lot about callings, about walking worthy of that ultimate call to follow Christ. I talk a lot about it, because it’s the most important thing any of us can ever do. I talk a lot about it, because it’s hard. And these two passages sum up why: because it’s never just a matter of hearing His call and saying, “Yeah, sure, okay. I can do that. Easy peasy.”

Nope. It’s a matter–always a matter–of first recognizing how impossible this thing is that He’s calling us to. How unworthy we are. How sinful we are. How unclean. It’s a matter of seeing ourselves in perfect contrast to the One who commissions us. It’s a matter of craving Him, craving His goodness so much that we’ll do anything, anything to dwell in His presence. We’ll wash, we’ll scrub, we’ll walk the fire. We’ll turn away from all the things we thought we were working for. We’ll abandon security and wealth and all the things of this world. All for a glimpse, a taste, a sip of the eternal that He offers.

That is the first step toward becoming worthy. Recognizing where we’re not, and offering that to God. Falling at His feet and just admitting it. “I’m not good enough, God. I’m not worthy to do this thing You ask.” And then accepting what He offers to cleanse us, to make us worthy. Accepting the pain and the hardship and the uncertainty. Accepting it because we know there’s something better standing just before us, because we know that the King is there, and He has a task for us to carry out for His kingdom.

Peter shows us all through the Gospels that sometimes eagerness gets in our way; sometimes pride will trip us up. Sometimes we prove over and over again that we really aren’t worthy. But he proves, too, that consistently offering ourselves up for God’s loving chastisement and guiding hand is all that it takes to be made useful and worthy once again. He shows us that living the faith wholeheartedly may not mean we never stumble, but it means we bounce back up to go and feed His sheep.

I don’t know where you are in your calling, in your faith, in your walk. Do you feel unworthy of this thing that’s looming before you? Not good enough? Or maybe you’ve been on this path for so long, and the storm is raging, and you’re crying out, “Why, Lord? Why did you send me here?” Maybe you’re in a period of peace and joy, ready to build three tabernacles to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, because you’re so in awe of how He’s been transfigured before your very eyes. Or maybe you’re hiding away in an upper room, just willing the world to leave you alone, because it feels like your Lord is gone.

Wherever you are, know this: God is on His throne, and the seraphim are flying about Him, singing of His glory. He is on His throne, and that holy fire is burning in the throne room. Not to keep Him warm–why would He need that? It’s there for one purpose and one purpose only: to cleanse those who ask for it. To seal them. To prepare them for the mission He has prepared for them.

Will you shake your head and walk away sorrowful, like the rich young ruler? Or will you offer those unclean lips of your to God and say, “Here I am, Lord! Send ME!”

In our family devotional time, I’ve been noticing a trend in many of the psalms and canticles . . . there is a lot of talk about enemies. It’s in the songs . . . it’s in the prophecies . . . it’s in the praises. The writers of both Old and New Testaments talk a lot about being delivered from enemies. Being set free from enemies. Escaping enemies.

Then there’s our modern world, where we’re pretty much taught never to label anyone as an enemy, on the one hand . . . but where practically, anyone who disagrees with you can be branded as such.

Have we really given much thought, though, to what an enemy is? And why it’s such a basic part of the human condition?

The word is as ancient as the concept and has pretty much always meant what it means today–an adversary, a foe, someone with hateful or harmful intent. And certainly in the Bible we see plenty of literal examples of this. Many of the Davidic psalms that speak of enemies are speaking of literally running for one’s life.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of enemy.

But part of the canticle of Zechariah, as he’s prophesying about his son John, he says this:

This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship Him without fear,
holy and righteous in His sight
all the days of our life.

That made me sit up and look at “enemies” in a new way. Who or what are our true enemies? Those things and people who would keep us from worshiping God.

It could mean an oppressive government and its agents. It could mean a family member. It could mean those things we let take over our time. It could be a bully at school or the office. It could be a boss. It could be a spouse. It could be ourselves.

I don’t have anyone seeking my life . . . but do I have people in my life seeking to keep me from God?

Worse still, do I ever act as my own enemy in that sense? Do I let things or people or my own ideas get in the way of worshiping God freely and without fear? Or do we let the fear of what people will say, what they will do, how they will respond to us intimidate us into silence?

As a writer, I know that “enemies,” antagonists, can be anyone. Not necessarily always bad people, just people opposed to our hero. I’ve spent some time pondering whether we are in fact the antagonists in other people’s stories–and that comes into play here too. Are we being the enemy of another? Are we hindering someone else’s worship of God? Are we judging them for what we don’t understand? Are we getting in the way of their true worship with our logic and longing for things that are normal and safe? I mean, imagine your child feels a call like John the Baptist, to live in the wilderness, dress strangely, and eat bugs. Are you going to be praising God for that, or are you going to be mumbling, “Can’t you just get a real job and stop embarrassing me?” What would have happened had Zechariah taken that approach instead of proclaiming his son’s destiny with praise? He would have been an enemy, of John and of God.

Instead, we need to be like this doubting father who latched hold of what God was doing. We need to make certain we’re the allies of God and His followers, not the enemy.

And we also need to keep our eyes peeled for who in our own lives are acting out that part, however well-intentioned they think they are. Anything and anyone who comes between us and God is not our friend, not in that. And perhaps if we can see them as such, we can relegate them to their proper place.

The Way of the straight and narrow isn’t easy, and we’re going to be beset on every side. That doesn’t mean we go looking for persecution in every stray word . . . but it does mean that we remain always vigilant, knowing that our ultimate goal must always remain to worship Him. And that if there’s something coming between us and that goal, that’s something we need to give to Him in prayer and supplication. Because that is the battle He will fight for us.

And He is always the victor.