Alarms.

“Wake up, wake up; put on your strength, Zion!  Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the Holy City!  For the uncircumcised and the unclean will no longer enter you.  Stand up, shake the dust off yourself!  Take your seat, Jerusalem; Remove the bonds from your neck, captive Daughter Zion.”

  Isaiah 52:1-2

Alarms are a big part of our lives.  I wouldn’t have graduated from college without the 2 in my room that went off every morning.  I have an alarm on my watch and my phone.  I started thinking about alarms a little over a week ago when I got an email from my mom and dad.  A couple of days before I left the states my mom set an alarm for 6 months ahead.  For the day that my plane was scheduled to land back home.  My heart sunk when I read her words.  I could hear the hurt in them and I wanted to make it right.  I knew I couldn’t because I am still in Uganda, not in America running off the plane to meet the people that raised me, the friends that I grew with in college, the people that were all I knew 6 months ago.   Instead of answering my mom’s set alarm I am answering the 2 alarms that go off daily for Sam’s medicine, we are scheduling doctor’s appointments, budgeting, planning meetings, and figuring out our own, new schedule.  Instead of waking up to my watch alarm, I am waking up to kids screaming, that bouncing basketball that hits our bedroom wall, or the 2 recently acquired chickens (the rooster is the real culprit) roaming outside our window.   

I think we have some different feelings when it comes to our alarms that sit next to our beds. 

1)       We are in the deepest sleep possible and we simply can’t hear the outside world.  Alarm goes unnoticed. 

2)      We are having trouble sleeping because we are anticipating the alarm that will surely go off at any moment.

3)      We jump up with energy and purpose when we hear the buzz because we know it’s go time.

4)      We drag out of bed because the last thing we want to do is listen to a stupid machine tell us what to do.

Our days seeking God, and figuring out this “new” life are something like alarms.  Some of the things God asks me to do I jump up, ready to go.  For others I sleep through or dread doing because I don’t wanna.  For others I am impatient and I keep anticipating, but God keeps telling me to wait for His call quietly and patiently (Lamentations 3).  We all go through seasons.  Sometimes it seems as if too many alarms are going off, and let’s face it we are overwhelmed.  And YES God does give you more than you can handle, but it’s cool cause he walks on water, calms storms, and OH YEAH- raises people from the dead. He is God.  He is good.  He is great.  Sometimes you are longing to HEAR and KNOW and SEE God, but there is this loud silence and it can get frustrating. 

In any case God is teaching our family to stay alert and devote ourselves to prayer.  Because without our longing and submission we won’t be able to answer or act on anything God hands us for the day.  We encourage you to have peace with the alarms in your life; to have the courage to jump up and ACT, as well as to have the peace, patience, and endurance to be still and wait.  God has never been late or early with anything.

  He will wake you up right on time.

“Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.” Colossians 4:2