Friday, July 7, 2017
But
you, lazybones, how long will you sleep?
When will you wake up? A little
extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—then
poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an
armed robber. Proverbs 6:9-11(NLT)
It’s been a
lot of years since I had surgery with general anesthetic. Aside from the effect of having someone carve
holes in you with a scalpel, there are other consequences.
Monday
morning when the anesthesiologist put the mask on me and said, now just take a few deep breaths…I’m
not sure I heard another word. I awoke a few hours later…almost! They told my bride, Elizabeth I was tough to
wake up. (She could only smile; she
knows I sleep like a weary dead man anyway.)
I honestly
don’t remember ever waking up. I don’t
recall them helping me to get out of the semi-private gown and into my
jeans. I seem to recall walking through
the surgery center doors outside, but missed the trip back to Thomasville entirely,
including a stop at the pharmacy for those wonderful little pills that took the
post-op pain away.
The next
two days are a hazy blur! I will have to
take it on faith that some unethical telemarketer didn’t get me to sign-away my
firstborn into slavery while I was under the influence!
There are
some other residual effects of sedation strong enough to bring down a herd of
bull elephants; I’ll spare you the graphic intimate details!
You’re
welcome.
One
application about drug-induced sleep; it’s a little like the sin of
complacency. When you’re in deep, you
hardly know you’re in deep. And even
when they – friends, family, or the preacher – try to awaken you, you can’t
cooperate without some strong assistance.
God spoke
to the nation of Israel, with that kind of rather harsh assistance, to get them
to awaken from the sedative effect:
“I am the Lord,
and I do not change. That is why you
descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed.
Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and
failed to obey them. Now return to me,
and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have
never gone away?’ “Should people cheat
God? Yet you have cheated me! “But you
ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever
cheat you?’ “You have cheated me of the
tithes and offerings due to me. You are
under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so
there will be enough food in my Temple. If
you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows
of heaven for you. I will pour out a
blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! Malachi 3:6-10(NLT)
The
sedative effect of cumulative sin had dulled the spiritual sensitivity of God’s
people, and they were quite comfortable in going through the motions of
religious activities, while their hearts (and tithes) were far away from the
God for which they proclaimed undying love.
Israel
needed strong assistance out of their anesthesia…it was time to wake up!
Yet, despite
their obvious, sleeping, sinful ways, God was still willing to bless them if
they turned back to him. Which proves
once again that it wasn’t Israel’s people who had undying love for God…it was
the other way around.
For You Today
Could
it be America, its churches, and we, the people, need to return to our Heavenly
Father as much as ancient Israel?
NOTES
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