Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Stay awake!

I work night shift. 

There are six of us that primarily work night shift in our unit.  A few others rotate down to our shift from time to time.  Those of us who work nights all the time know how to fight the temptation to be sleepy.  We each seem to be acutely aware of what time for us is the most difficult.  For me it is between 4am and 5am. 

You don't find the straight night shift nurses falling asleep.  Why is that?  Because we are very aware of how prone our bodies can be to becoming sleepy and we guard against that.  If we begin to feel sleepy we do something to counteract it.  We get up.  We move.  We do something different.  We drink some ice water.  We have one nurse who chews ice.  I like copious amounts of coffee.

Spiritually, we must do the same thing.  While our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ has created in our spirits a new creature, we still the the law of sin in our members -- our flesh.  And this gives us a tendency to be more asleep spiritually than awake.  The Apostle Paul, however, tells us that it is "high time" to wake up!

"And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. . .But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. (Romans 13:11,14)

We must be aware that our spirits will lust against our flesh and we must not make provision for  the flesh.  We must do something to counteract it.  We must get up.  We must move.  Pray.  Read the Bible. Sing praises.  Share the Lord with someone.    Do something different.  Do not leave walking with the Lord up to chance or else you may just find yourself asleep.


"For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would."
 (Galatians 5:17)

"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:" 
(Romans 7:22)

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