Chronic Somnambulist

I really don’t have much trouble sleeping.  Over the last few days I have enjoyed several extended naps, even late afternoon and evening naps, and had no trouble getting to sleep when it was time for the extended night nap.  Furthermore, when I am asleep I am asleep. I can sleep through storms or noise or worry.  I know that others struggle with sleep and I am blessed that I have the gift of restful, productive slumber.

I am, however, prone to somnambulism, sleep walking, in other areas of my life.  I can do really great things, experiencing stretches of creative productivity, but I’ll also find myself dozing through dozens of daily duties.  I’ll sleep walk as a dad, as a husband, as an employee but in these cases I catch myself and wake up and engage. 

It’s easy to snap out of it really.  There are real tangible consequences and implications for drifting across the center line of life. Kids grow up fast and you don’t want to miss it. Marriage is an awesome gift but you don’t want to take it for granted. Your job relies on you to be productive and your family relies on you to provide.  And so, like rumble strips preventing a sleepy driver from disaster, life has built in rumble strips to keep you on track. (Some of my favorites come in the form of requests:  “Dad do you want to play a game, jump on the trampoline, go outside…” “Are you going to come tuck us in?” It’s not hard to stay on track when you have motivations like these!)

There is an area that I’m less likely to shake out of when I experience an ambulatory coma. The area is my Christian walk, my relationship with Jesus, especially when it comes to my engagement in prayer and in the Word of God. Some of the habits of Christian discipline come easy to me.  Attending church and Sunday school, teaching classes, fellowshipping with believers, all seem simple in comparison to engaging in an active prayer life and reading the Bible.

External rumble strips are available in these areas no doubt.  I have friends who ask me to pray for them. Rumble, rumble, “Wake up Ben – Pray”.  I have friends tell me about the things they are reading in the Bible or how they are engaged in the Word. Rumble, rumble, “Wake up Ben – Read”.  Still, even when these prompts induce action it is all too often short lived and or even worse ignored. 

C.S. Lewis writes about inaction through his characterization of the Demons efforts in The Screwtape Letters. In the demon Screwtape’s advice to his nephew about corrupting his human he indicates the following.

No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will.  As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened.  The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.

I recognize the truth in this admonition yet in its truth I also must acknowledge a reflection of my own reality. The less likely I am to act on the prompts to read and to pray increases the temporal distance between prompts (or recognition of) and increasingly minimizes the impact of those prompts on me to act.

So what’s next? One thing is to take this rumbling right now and act, pray, read. The other is to search and pray for a way for those actions to be sustained.  The areas I mentioned above are easy to be corrected by because they are right in my face.  There are physical agents that get in my face to wake me up and help me maintain my discipline as a husband, father and employee.  

God could get in my face in whatever way He wants to and sometimes he does through friends or other prompts but He doesn’t typically work that way.  However he has provided two significant ways to be continually challenged, and encouraged and engaged but for them to be effective they have to be used. Act, pray, read. As I know from stronger seasons, if I only engage God will take care of the rest.