Boy, do we need to get woke

It’s a bit maddening, and frustrating, and depressing…reading so many repeated half-truths and hateful mischaracterizations related to the current immigration debate. I want to address every single one I read, but it would likely be a waste of time and emotion, and even counterproductive. So I resist and ask myself, what can I say that might actually effect change?

It’s human nature to dig in your heels when your opinion or point of view is challenged. But in social and political conflicts, as in tug of war, resistance meets resistance and it seems the only way of bringing the other side over to yours is by force. But who wants that? Well, some do, and that’s a real concern, but it’s also a topic for another post.

What if, instead of dealing with issues on ground level only, we widen our perspective and see them from a higher, more existential point of view? This issue of what to do with children of detained illegal immigrants will eventually either be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction (unlikely), or gradually fade out of the public consciousness as it is replaced by another point of contention. But whatever position we take on any issue, be it political, social, moral, or personal, we come to it from an overarching worldview, which governs the lower, more specific views we hold.

So perhaps our efforts are better spent promoting one’s worldview over others rather than haggling over particular issues. This has actually been my focus on this blog, but I’m thinking I need to be more intentional about drawing the focus there in my personal interactions with those who obviously speak from a different worldview. In particular, those who condemn their opponents in no uncertain, moralistic terms from a worldview that cannot objectively ground morality. And who champion loving your neighbor but completely dismiss the notion of loving God.

Are you woke?
The rancor and division, mutual distrust and stubborn stalemating will continue until enough of us get woke. But not woke in the colloquial sense…woke in the “I have been born again” sense. I was in darkness but now have seen the light. I was dead and now I am alive. I was sleeping through life, but now I am woke.

America needs another Great Awokening.

Those of us who are already spiritually woke need not only to direct our opponents’ focus to existential beliefs but to pray for revival. And since revival starts in the church, we also need to be prepared to have our own hearts convicted first so that as we repent of our own sin we are better prepared to be used by God in convicting others of theirs so that they will see their need for him. We woke ones do not often obey God in loving our neighbor as we love ourselves and need to own that even as we go about rousing our neighbor to true wokefulness.

That has been my prayer for the last year or so…that God the Holy Spirit ratchets up his work of convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8), stirring up another great revival bringing us to our knees and ushering in an era of peace, love, goodness, and faithfulness to him.

Too many of us think we are woke but we’re actually very much asleep and merely dreaming. May God sound a great alarm heard ‘round the world, and may many respond to it. It has a snooze button, but let the snoozers be warned that you can only hit it so many times. Eventually God will leave you to your slumber, and there will be no light, no life, no being truly woke for you.