Image from hexjam.com
Listen, Shepherd, Israel's Shepherd - get all your Joseph sheep together. Throw beams of light from your dazzling throne So Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh can see where they're going. Get out of bed - you've slept long enough! Come on the run before it's too late.Remember how you brought a young vine from Egypt, cleared out the brambles and briers and planted your very own vineyard? You prepared the good earth, you planted her roots deep; the vineyard filled the land. Your vine soared high and shaded the mountains, even dwarfing the giant cedars. Your vine ranged west to the Sea, east to the River. So why do you no longer protect your vine? Trespassers pick its grapes at will; Wild pigs crash through and crush it, and the mice nibble away at what's left. God of the angel armies, turn our way! Take a good look at what's happened and attend to this vine. Care for what you once tenderly planted - the vine you raised from a shoot. And those who dared to set it on fire - give them a look that will kill! Then take the hand of your once-favorite child, the child you raised to adulthood. We will never turn our back on you; breathe life into our lungs so we can shout your name! God, God of the angel armies, come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our salvation. (Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19 The Message Bible)
Ah, the joys of sleep! Some people enjoy sleep too much; some not at all. Which are you? For this passage sleep refers to inaction or inactivity towards what God desires from us. So, it isn't necessarily that of staying in bed snoring; it is our willing to stay inactive, or worse, indifferent to what God calls. The image of the vineyard returns today; the psalmist is calling upon God, and upon God's children, to awaken and to do that which pleases God, not us. The feeling of the writer is that God has abandoned us and pleads for God to return; when in fact God never moves, it is us. The old joke of the elderly couple stoping at a traffic light behind a young couple, tells of the wife on the passenger side saying, "Look at those two! They're so close together they seem like a two-headed monster!" Then reflecting on it says, looking at her husband, "Remember when we used to do that? Why don't we do that anymore?" The old man said, "I haven't moved."
Here is our invitation to move closer to the Lord in our actions. Stop sleeping and taking for granted that God will do everything for us. We have to get up, get out, and busy in doing what we are called to do: Share the Good News of God's love through Jesus Christ. Every day that we take for granted is a day lost in the work needed for God's Kingdom.
PRAYER: Awaken, O God, my heart, mind, spirit, and body, to the work You've called me to do. There is so much to do and we cannot take another day for granted. In Christ Jesus we pray, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
