awakening

But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! Romans 13:11-12 (The Message)

Day-to-day life can be so consuming.  It can definitely absorb and/or exhaust us.  In the midst of daily demands and obligations it is so easy to lose sight of what is truly important (or needed--see Luke 10:42), in contrast with what is merely urgent (or seems to be at least) .  And sadly enough I am still so easily swayed, so easy distracted from the One Thing by the many things.  It's almost like I need a daily awakening, if not a minute-by-minute one, to remind me of what is really important; to shift my vision from all of the things around me, to the One who lives within me.  A daily call to stop living out of the false names, and selves, and stories I tend to live out of, that lead me to live in fear and insecurity and anxiety; and to live in the true name that God knows me and calls me by--Beloved.  A name, and a life, that allows me to be up and awake to what God is doing rather than being overcome, and overwhelmed, and overly-affected by all that is going on in the world around me.   

O Lord, my God, help me to live my life in you.  Wake me up minute-by-minute, day-by-day, to your presence within me and around me.  Wake me up to your love, and to your care, to your voice, and to your Spirit.  Help me to come all awake within, and when I finally do, help me to find myself in your loving arms.

Those who have shaken off sleep eventually become all awake within.  ~Clement of Alexandria