Joel 2:1 – “Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near.”
As I previously mentioned, I’ve lived close to a fire station for decades, so I am very accustomed to sirens. Most of the time, I barely notice them. But when the fire alarm in my own building sounds, that is different. I am instantly awake.
Well, it might wake me up temporarily, but it still cannot make the decision for me. Stay in bed or get out of bed.
It’s up to me to respond. Annoying, but true.
Because of my disability, getting out of my building isn’t as simple as pulling on a hoodie and running down several flights of stairs. I need to assess what is happening and decide what I need to do. The alarm has done its job. It has alerted me. What happens next is up to me.
By the way, the fire department has been given a list of disabled people in my building, and it knows where to find me. But once again, it’s still up to me to get up and get ready.
I’ve been thinking about how easily I can do something similar with God.
There are times when He convicts me, redirects me, or puts His finger on something I’ve been avoiding. Sometimes He speaks with a wee little nudge. Sometimes that conviction feels more like an alarm going off in my spirit.
Either way, once I recognise what He is saying, I have a choice.
One Monday morning several years ago, my alarm clock briefly woke me up. I sleepily reached over and hit snooze. It sounded again, and I hit snooze again. Instead of getting out of bed, I closed my eyes for just one more minute.
Or so I thought.
The next time I looked at the clock, more than two hours had passed. Fortunately, the only commitment I had that day was writing and editing. Still, I spent the rest of the day feeling as if I were chasing myself, trying to catch up. Which was, sadly, a very familiar feeling most Mondays.
The alarm worked perfectly. The problem wasn’t the alarm.
It was me, turning it off and deliberately rolling over to snooze for ‘one more minute.’
I can do that with God too. I hear the nudge clearly enough, but instead of saying no, I tell myself I’ll get to it later. Somehow, later sounds much better than no. But procrastination that comes wrapped up in promises I probably won’t keep is basically defined by one word: disobedience.
Of course, there are legitimate times when God asks us to wait or gives us time to prepare. Then there are times when circumstances mean we simply cannot act immediately. But there are other times when I know what He has asked me to do, and I am simply putting it off.
That is where I need to be honest with myself.
Repeatedly ignoring conviction can make it easier to ignore it the next time. The danger of repeatedly silencing an alarm isn’t that the alarm stops working. It’s that I become practised at ignoring it.
I usually have four alarms set on my phone on any given morning, and I still manage to crawl out of bed late. I don’t particularly love admitting that, but here we are.
That doesn’t mean I should become anxious about every thought or impression that crosses my mind. Responsiveness to God is not the same thing as impulsiveness.
I think young Samuel gives us a beautiful picture of that in 1 Samuel 3.
In the middle of the night, Samuel was woken from his sleep by hearing his name called. As he was new to living in a prophet’s house where God often spoke, the boy didn’t realise that it was God who was trying to get his attention.
And so, he went to Eli for help. Eli eventually understood what was happening and taught Samuel the best way to respond:
“Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.”
Samuel listened. He received counsel from someone wiser than himself. He recognised the Lord’s voice.
And then came the difficult part.
He obeyed.
Even though the word God gave Samuel wasn’t going to be an easy one to deliver.
He obeyed.
Even though he was afraid to tell Eli what he had heard, when the time came, Samuel told the old prophet everything.
Of course, it mattered that Samuel was willing to first hear God’s voice and then to seek the counsel of a discerning and more experienced person. But eventually, little Samuel had to step out in obedience.
Maybe I need to take the example of the child Samuel to heart and look back at the times I didn’t respond in instantaneous obedience and instead reached out and hit a spiritual snooze button. Not in an overthinking, let-me-analyse-everything-I-have-ever-done sort of way, because I am already far too good at that.
No, perhaps I just need to ask myself a simple question:
Is there something I already know God has asked me to do that I keep putting off?
If there is, perhaps I don’t need another alarm.
Perhaps I simply need to get out of bed.
Until next time,
Kath