So, I look up and it’s the 28th of February! My last post was on the 6th of January! I was hoping to post after each week of Bible study but haven’t even started a structured study-plan yet! This is witch-craft!

Not really, but sort of. The reality is that if you don’t stop and prioritize spending time with God you will just put it off until you look up one day and a month, a year, or even a life-time is gone. It’s not as if I didn’t pray or read the Bible, or devotional texts, at all this year, but the aim was to make it purposeful part of my day – not something I do if I happen to wake up early enough or have some time left after we put the kids to bed. The reality is the only structured devotional time I have in my day is when I pray with the kids at bed-time and our son reads to us from his children’s page-a-day devotional. Just as a side-bar, I’ve lost count of the number of times God has spoken directly to me to me through this children’s book — and hearing it in the voice of my 10-year old son makes it all the more powerful.

My biggest challenge is time. I work a full-day and have a 4-hour (2-hour each way) commute. That’s the reality of my life. I try to make the most of my commute by listening to Christian books and the Bible on Audible, but I’m just not getting any quality devotional time from this. I need quiet God time. I crave it! I could get up an hour earlier … but, I just cannot seem to get it right. I fall asleep exhausted, and get up feeling equally exhausted. God has addressed me directly on this issue — as in, he’s used every possible communication channel to tell me that this is something I MUST DO. He’s all but yelled at me regarding the matter:

• He talks to me in an obscure Petra song that I haven’t heard in 20 years. The lyrics from their song Sleeping Giant (from their 1993-album Wake Up Call) echoes in my head all day: Can you hear the alarm echo down the hall? The sleeping giant gets a wake up call. Awake from your sleep ’cause it’s time to stand tall. The sleeping giant gets a wake up call.
• In February, three consecutive days in My Utmost for His Highest (the Oswald Chambers daily devotional) calls on the reader to Stand Up to battle despair, depression and disillusionment (the three D’s that keep me down and ‘asleep’).
• The last three daily devotionals my son read at bed-time asks the reader to act with God’s guidance and to “take the first step”.

We blame all the overtly evil things in this world on the Devil, but I think that inaction — the weakness of the flesh — is perhaps the most harmful to the children of God as it ties you up in things (including snugly duvets) that keeps you busy or occupied without promoting forward movement. So, maybe the fact that I haven’t posted in nearly two months is witch-craft.

Ultimately, however, the call is on all of us to Stand Up — literally and figuratively. I’ll take up this challenge in the days that follow. I pray that God grants me the strength to shake off the blankets and cobwebs at 5 a.m. so I can spend some quality time with him.