Episode 1. Asleep at the Wheel
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Being asleep at the wheel is no way to drive a car. And yet way too many are asleep at the wheel when it comes to understanding God’s plan for their lives. The outcome is the same. So – are you …
Being asleep at the wheel is no way to drive a car, I’m sure you’ll agree. And yet way too many are asleep at the wheel of their own lives, eyes closed to the road ahead that God has planned. Whether it’s driving a car, or driving your life asleep at the wheel, the outcome’s the same.
Life is full of transitions, isn’t it? If you were able to join me last week on the program you’ll know that at the moment we’re chatting about the uncomfortable transitions that we go through in life, in fact when you stand back and look at it life for the most part seems to be a series of transitions stacked up one after the other.
We go from being a child to being an adult; they call those years our teenage years and anyone who’s been a teenager will know what an awkward, often difficult time those years represent. You feel as though you’re caught between being a child and being an adult, it seems that you’re neither one nor the other. Anyone who’s been a parent of a teenager will definitely know those teenage years are trying times for everyone.
You see it’s this transition thing, from something we know to something we don’t know, from A to B and what we’d like to do is we’d like it to be quick and simple and direct and comfortable and predictable and safe, that’s what we’d like it to be but our journey in life never is, is it?
From single to married, from married to single, from staff member to supervisor to manager, from employed to unemployed, from unemployed to employed, from student to teacher, whatever the change is, whatever the transition is there’s always this awkwardness, an uncomfortableness about it.
I remember at age thirty-six going back to college. Now by this time in my career I was normally the teacher. I’d travelled around the world speaking at conferences, teaching people stuff and yet back at college again here I was to learn something new. I thought to myself on the first day, “How am I going to cope with this? I’m normally the guy up front doing the teaching and yet here I am the student handing in assignments for someone else to grade.”
So we’ve been looking at this whole transition thing by putting ourselves in Israel’s shoes. They’d been exiled in Babylon for seventy years. Why were they there? Because they’d been unfaithful to God. See He’d given them the Promised Land, He’d blessed them enormously, He’d prospered them but somehow they weren’t so good at handling success because let’s face it success sometimes takes some handling. And they’d turned away from God so He punishes them by letting Babylon come and destroy Jerusalem and take God’s people into captivity as slaves where they’ve been when we pick up their story in Isaiah chapter 51 and 52.
So at the end of seventy years of slavery God’s ready to bless them again and take them home back to the Promised Land. You’d think when Isaiah announced that there’d be shouting and dancing in the streets but think about it most of these Israelites have been born there in Babylon in slavery, they’d been there for seventy years and while they’ve heard of the Promised Land it’s a bit like a dream land.
Does it really exist? And hey we’re slaves right? We’re oppressed by the dominant world power of the day, the Babylonians right? How are we ever going to get to see the Promised Land? That’s the reality and when we’re in our version of Babylon, when we’re in that place that we’d rather not be in, come on, how difficult is it for us even to begin to imagine that God would actually restore our lives.
I was listening to a great speaker Bo Stern at a Church I was visiting recently in Lincoln Nebraska. She was telling the story of the difference between her family heritage and her husband’s. See he came from a strong Christian family and she said he was the most positive, most faith filled man she had ever met. She on the other hand was, as she put it, from a family where worrying was seen as a virtue. In fact fear, she said, is my default mode.
Don’t you love that? Fear is my default mode – and that my friend is true for many of us. Most of us respond to uncertainty and transition with fear rather than faith. That’s where Israel was; they needed some convincing that God was actually going to bless them. That’s where many people are today. How about you?
So God sends them Isaiah and as we saw last week three times in chapter 51 of the Book of Isaiah God says to His people, ‘Listen to me! Listen to me! Listen to me!’ It’s like that alarm clock at 6 o’clock in the morning going ring, ring, ring. What’s He trying to do? He’s trying to get their attention, He’s trying to wake them up and in fact that’s the very next thing He says to them, and we’re going to look at that today, He said, “Wake up!”
Let’s see what God had to say to His people back then and what He’s saying to you and me about His plans and purposes for us today, Isaiah chapter 52, verses 1 to 6:
Awake, awake, put on your strength O Zion, put on your beautiful garments O Jerusalem, the Holy city. For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more. Shake yourself from the dust, rise up O captive Jerusalem, loose the bonds from your neck O captive daughter Zion.
For thus says the Lord God, you were sold for nothing and you shall be redeemed without money for thus says the Lord, long ago my people went down into Egypt to reside there as aliens, the Assyrians too has oppressed them without cause. Now therefore what am I doing here says the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away without cause?
Their rulers howl, says the Lord and continually all day long my name is despised. Therefore my people shall know my name, therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak. Here am I.
God’s shouting to them, “People, wake up!” You know what it’s like when you first wake up out of that deep sleep, you’re kind of groggy and disoriented and if your default mode is fear and you’re travelling through your difficult place, your health issue, your marriage issue, your family issue, your money issue, your whatever, when you’re in that place and your default mode is fear it’s like you need some waking up.
To wake up from that drowsiness of that negativity to the potential, the amazing future that God has for you, we need to get dressed in the garment of praise, we need to put on the strength we have in Christ. We need to shake the dust off our attitude where it’s settled from lack of movement because fear has a tendency to paralyse us, we kind of sit there, we lie there and hope it’s all going to change. We need to loose the bonds of the captivity to our circumstances that are choking us.
What a beautiful picture. The Hebrews are great at this picture language. But what God is wanting His people to wake up to, to yet another nightmare? No. God is wanting them to wake up to the fact that by His sovereign will and His immense power He’s already started doing some amazing stuff.
That the God of their fathers is going to redeem them without money, in other words He’s going to do it Himself. He’s already doing it and it’s going to cost them nothing, no work, no effort because God is in this. “Wake up to what I’m doing here people.” That’s what God’s saying to Israel and my friend I believe that’s what He’s saying to you and to me today.
When we’re in that dark and difficult place of transition, from something we know to something we don’t, from something that’s uncomfortable to something that may not be as comfortable and familiar, we almost want to be asleep, it’s our default mode, we’re not expecting God to move.
I’m not saying He’s always going to wave a magic wand and solve every problem, that may not be his plan but He may have a plan to fill you with the exquisite knowledge of His presence, the sort that’s only available in the dark places you’re in. The sort of knowledge of the presence of God and His healing and comforting spirit that simply wouldn’t be as poignant or as powerful in a place of light as it is in a place of darkness.
Whatever God’s plan is for you, let me tell you He does have a plan for good. He has a mighty purpose for your life whether you’re eight or whether you’re eighty. “WAKE UP my child, wake up to the plan that I have for you.” That’s what God is saying.
See the stuff we can end up missing out on when we’re not into God’s Word. Wake up!
Comments
Tahna Willoughby
I enjoy reading these devotionals so much. They bring me peace and a deeper understanding of Jesus, God, and the Bible. Thank you so much for doing this.