Lullabies are sweet songs intended for the purpose of lulling into slumber. It’s a delicious taste of peace to receive their sweet sounds — and to deliver the ones we love into a dream. Until, alas, we are pulled from our dreamy depths and we must awaken.
My daughter loves “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” She sings it around the house, and thrusts her little fists into the air, bursting open as if to show the brightness of the star. It’s stinking adorable.
I generally suppose that lullabies are meant to be sweet, that peace is what we parallel with the savory songs that keep us from awakening to the exhaustion of life awake. Lullabies are cute. Sleep as a means to more fully experience life is a blessing — but we were never meant to stay there. Never waking up is called a coma — what feels real might not be, and it robs us of true life.
What if there are lullabies of the heart? What if they weren’t so sweet? Melodies that diminish the urgent, that put our spirits to sleep when we ought not slumber. And it is not rest that we retreat into, it is not redemption of life into which we take refuge; no, it is a fog that fades clarity. Reduces urgency. Steals life. Hides truth. Offers false hope. Confuses purpose. Depletes confidence. Robs us off all things that offer true life.
And so a gentle voice calls into our slumber… “Awaken, my child. Come awake!”
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” — Ezekiel 36:26
When our marriages are fighting for a chance — we need to wake up and take hold of what is true. When our children are asking us in their vulnerability to point to what is good and true and beautiful — we must open our eyes and point to Him, for we alone will never be enough. When we need confidence to continue when we are discouraged — we must awaken to our true identities. When we are satisfied with stuff — we must awaken to the unseen and the eternal. When we are trying to do more — we must open our eyes to what has already been done for us. When we are paralyzed by overactive self-awareness — we must wake up to those around us. When we respond with a casual indifference to glory — we must come awake.
And only one can do it. Only one can wake us from a state of slumber and into life.
Awaken first love, come awake.
And do as you did at first.
Spirit of the Living God
Come fall afresh on me.
Come wake me from my sleep.
Blow through the caverns of my soul
pour in me to overflow.
Awaken my soul come awake
to hunger, to seek, to thirst.
Let us recognize our pangs of hunger for what they are — for only one can satisfy. Let him arouse your heart out of a slumber. Let him show you life at its fullest. Lord, let all of us awaken from the slumbers that keep us from you and life at its fullest.