AWAKEN

Have you been driving home from a familiar place and arrived at your house without remembering the entire drive? Most accidents happen within five minutes from your house for this very experience. When driving a familiar route your senses are dulled, you don’t have to pay attention because autopilot will navigate you through familiar curves. Since you only see what is expected, the speeding car or group of pedestrians are initially not noticed until its often too late.

The same is true in our lives. We get into routines and can go through entire days on autopilot, only snapping out of it in crisis. Even relationships and conversation become habitual. Although the cruise control is comfortable, it dulls our senses and we miss it, we miss Him. Taste, touch, smell, sight and sound, this is where life is exist, where Christ exists. He lives in emotion, sunsets, raspberries, roses and sandy toes and salty tears. To awaken your senses is to awaken your soul.

Why do I encounter Christ when serving soup at a homeless shelter? When climbing mountains? When vulnerably sharing myself with a new friend? In each situation my routine is broken, auto-pilot off and senses turned on as I enter an unfamiliar place where the outcome is unknown. What will I encounter in the shelter? What will it smell like? Will I respond with compassion or thanksgiving? What will is see among the mountains? Will I slip as I climb the trail? What will the view be like? As I climb will it get colder or warmer? How will my friend respond to my vulnerability? Will cry with me as I share or will I freak them out? The Lord speaks to our senses. When our experiences awaken our senses we can expect to encounter Christ.

So awaken, whether that means experiencing new cultures and climates through travel, tutoring a youth in your city, asking pursuing questions that bring new depth to an old friendship or simply dipping your toes into a river. The Lord is present, always. So awaken and encounter.