Home Tools for your Journey April 16

Wednesday, April 16

Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
—Ephesians 5:14b

We can be breathing but barely living. We can be walking through life, but walking as though dead. We can hear the sounds, do the duties, say the words, go through the motions of life, but be like bodies with nothing but an echo running through them. We can tread through the path of light but be in the shadow of death.

We often hear ourselves or others saying that what is needed is more time. If only we had more than twenty-four hours in a day, we would have more time to truly live. We could attend to our responsibilities and have time left over to pay attention to the world around us, to drink in the beauty of the sun, to touch the soft flowers, to slowly savor our food, to notice the air moving rhythmically through our nostrils.

We could pay more attention to our families, and take time to watch our children and grandchildren growing. We could give time to passions yet unseen, unborn in our heart, and revel in the delightful playfulness of life. We could have more time in the light and less in the dark.

But it is not really more time that is needed. Rather, we need to wake up in the time that we have. It is the attitude of wakefulness that makes it possible for us to glimpse the eternal light of heaven shining benevolently before our path.

When we choose to wake up, that light streams all over the activities and people of our lives. Much to our amazement we find that, for those who have chosen to be raised from the dead, twenty-four hours is exactly enough.

O God, let the fetters be unbound that keep me dead in the midst of life, and let your light be the sign that I have been resurrected.

The Signposts for April are written by Renée Miller and originally appeared on explorefaith.org in May 2004.