Wake Up, Oh Sleeper. This is the awakening.

What do rapper Kanye West, Bible-preacher Beth Moore, and Christian-killing turned gospel-preaching Apostle Paul in AD 60 have in common?

The same rallying cry.

Wake up, oh sleeper.

In October 2019, over 20 million people watched talk-show host James Gordon interview Kanye West while sitting on airplane together about his new gospel album. James asked Kanye what he’d say to Christians who didn’t believe his spiritual transformation. 

In predictable Kayne fashion, his response was a perplexing stream of consciousness, making you wonder what planet he was on.

“When you go to sleep, would you agree, that you are asleep when you are asleep? And when you wake up, would you agree that you are awake when you’re awake?... People who don’t believe are walking dead. They are asleep. And this is the awakening.”

This is the awakening.

Exactly three years prior, in October 2016, respected Bible-teacher Beth Moore, author of nine books and over 20 Bible studies, tweeted, “Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power. Are we sickened? Yes. Surprised? No.”

She was responding to the release of Access Hollywood’s recording of Donald Trump saying “…when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Two months later, after Trump was elected President of the United States, she tweeted, “I do not believe these days are for mincing words. I’m 63 ½ years old & I have never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it.”

Wake up, Sleepers.

And exactly 1,956 years prior, in October of AD 60 (slightly kidding, no idea if it was October), the Apostle Paul, who once delighted in persecuting Christians but then had an out-of-the-blue spiritual reckoning with Jesus in the middle of a road trip, later implored Christians to remember this ancient hymn lyric: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:14).

Before quoting the hymn, Paul was writing to them about transformation. From living in the dark, to living in the light. In the darkness is lewdness, greed, and filth. And in the light is goodness, righteousness, and truth.

Rise from the dead.

Fast forward to last Friday, March 5th. A deep shift happened in my soul and words have failed to explain it. I heard things, experienced things, that I can not shake. The catalyst was a virtual gathering, broadcast live out of Texas to over 100 countries and over a hundred thousand women. I sat in a conference room at our church watching an interview with a pastor leading illegal, underground churches in the Middle East. He was American, a former drug addict, married to a Middle Eastern woman, and risked his safety for the interview. His face was blurred and his voice distorted.

His wife was a devoted Muslim but, through a series of unbelievable events including a suicide pact and a televangelist, her soul was awakened to Truth.

They moved to the US. They had cars, money, and our culture’s most coveted possession, freedom. Imagine the shock when the pastor’s wife approached him two months after moving and said, “I feel depressed. Let’s go back to my country.”

Perplexed, he asked why.

Her answer haunts me, friends. I think about it while falling asleep. I think about it while reheating my coffee mug in the microwave every morning. I think about it while getting the mail from my mailbox. I can’t stop replaying her response.

“Because the church here is under a satanic lullaby. And when I try to wake up, the lullaby gets faster.”

Satanic lullaby.

I believe it. In the depths of my soul, I believe it. It is a haziness, a veil that covers the American Western Church. A Christian culture that preaches prosperity as reward, comfort over conviction, emotional verse-plucking over Biblical literacy, unity that requires uniformity, cliques on Sundays instead doing life with neighbors, political wars masquerading as spiritual wars, behavior modification over spiritual transformation, Jesus’ friendliness more than God’s justice, and perhaps the most destructive and most enticing, moral relativism over God’s authority. Yes, even in the church.

Add to that layers of wordy prayers, preaching prayers, self-serving prayers.

Add to that worship lyrics about us becoming brave, claiming our spiritual authority, what He does for us.

Noise. There’s so much damn noise.

Taxes to file. Cable news to watch. Captions to write. Sports games to attend. Relationships to juggle. Deadlines to meet. Podcasts to listen to. Bills to pay. Music to write. RFP’s to submit. Books to read. Travel to book. Articles to hate. Mandates to hate. Opinions to hate. People to hate.

IT’S DEAFENING.

How on earth are we going to hear ‘deep crying out to deep’, our soul’s groaning for The Something More, in all this intoxicating, disorienting noise. It’s dulling our spiritual sensitivity.

We are sleep-walking and we don’t even know it.

And it’s not because some of us aren’t earnestly trying. Some of us are beating back the desires for security and comfort and self-sufficiency and ego and culture. We’re trying. We’re worshipping. We’re reading Christian books. We’re playing Christian radio. We’re listening to Christian podcasts. We’re going to church weekly. And yet all that adds to the noise.

We’re still missing it.

Our Western minds can not get sober long enough to catch the sound of The Supernatural blowing through the nations. God is revealing Himself in dreams and visions in the Middle East, to people who have everything to lose.  

But here in America, there is no persecution to purify us. And no, mask mandates don’t count as persecution – a strong rebuke from the underground pastor. There’s no silence to sober our minds. There’s no reverence to inspire full submission. There’s no urgency to confront our laziness or apathy.

Except seven days ago.

Hundreds of thousands of women in over 100 countries experienced the glory and holiness of God The Omnipotent, and the lullaby’s curse snapped. We embraced the unembracable. We tasted the untastable. We felt the intangible. We believed the unbelievable. Human encountering The Divine.

It was not an exhilarating experience, at least not for me. It felt groggy, disorienting, baffling, and then a feeling that’s hard to describe: being fully alive to all things, not just the seen but the unseen. The Deep. The Created experiencing The Creator. The fog lifted. His holiness was breathtaking. His compassion was immeasurably generous. His unwavering hate of darkness was perfectly justified.

Weary souls were reawakened to the Holy Maker of All Things.

Wake up, American church.
Be reverent.

Wake up, friends.
Behold His holiness.

Wake up, my soul.  
Be still.

Wake up, Oh Sleeper.

There is an awakening.