Today’s post comes from the book of Luke. In chapter 22 verses 39-46, Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives to pray. His disciples went with them and he asked them to pray too, but they fell asleep. I’m going to mainly focus on verse 46- “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” I’m going to be looking at this in a less literal sense and discuss avoiding a state of spiritual sleep.
Let’s look at it this way: you just got home from school and whatever practice you may have had afterwards. The school day was long and it pushed you mentally, and then practice was physically taxing. Unfortunately, as is often the case, you have that dreaded thing called homework, which you really should do, but…the temptation to take a nap is strong. It’s the same with our spiritual walk sometimes. With the busy lives we lead it’s so easy to just bypass our daily time with God. We skip out on reading our Bible here or miss some prayer time there. The problem with spiritual naps is that very frequently they turn into comas. The more you skip out on God the easier it becomes. No growth can happen in your relationship with God when you’ve fallen asleep. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Coma patients experience this thing called muscle atrophy. Lack of use causes their muscles to waste away. The longer you stay in a state of spiritual sleep, the more damage you have to recover from and the more setback you experience.
Spiritual sleep can be combatted with prayer. The Bible promises us that prayer is powerful. Ask God for the strength to continue in your walk and to avoid the temptation to fall asleep. Having and maintaining an active relationship with God is so much better than anything else you could spend your time doing. It’s worth it! If you now realize now that you have been asleep, consider this your alarm clock going off. Please don’t hit the snooze and roll back over!
Thursday Thoughts for Christian Teens 