Wake Up Call

I've been sick. Fever, cough, no energy sick. It only lasted three days, but for a person whose go button is always pushed like mine, that's an eternity. At 4pm yesterday I started to feel normal. Then this morning at 2am I woke up and found myself wide awake. My mind was filled with all sorts of things but mostly I kept thinking that the Lord was calling me like the Shepherd King calls to His bride in verse 10 of Chapter 2 of Song of Solomon: "My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away."

I know what happens in the story. The bride rolls over and says: "My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether." (V16-17) She is secure and satisfied and lazy. She says: "I'll catch up with you later." Then rolls over and falls back to sleep only to find that when she rises, she has no idea where to find him. I remember thinking a few weeks ago, I never want to just roll over and miss a chance to leap with the Lord on the high places. This works out well as I am a morning person and I love to run in the morning and then linger over His Word with a cup of coffee.

Well it was 2AM, I was just getting over being sick and I wanted to get up early...but not that early. If it was 3am or better yet 4am, I could almost see the logic in rising, but not 2? I laid there and said Lord, you can't really be asking this of me today, right now, so early, so dark, with so much to do the next day and just having been sick. So I prayed. I prayed for everyone I could think of at that hour. I was probably awake for forty five minutes before I fell back asleep. Now prayer is never wasted, but I feel like it was a compromise. And this morning I couldn't help but wonder if I missed something special.

Later at the gym I tried to redeem the time...I tried to find Him where He called me. But the moment was gone and He had moved to another place. Still, I tried to focus on His word, all the while feeling I had missed something greater. And then two thoughts came into my head: His banner over me is love. (Songs 2:4) and Thou [art] all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. (Songs 4:7). His banner over His bride was love before she slept in and His thoughts of her after she arose and sought Him were also of love. An unconditional love that overlooks her weakness and remembers it no more.

Did I miss something last night? Yes, possibly. Or perhaps the only thing I've lost is my sense that I could actually answer that wake up call at such an outrageous hour in and of my own strength. Perhaps instead of praying for everyone I could think of, I should have been praying for the Lord to strengthen me in order that I could answer His call and sit at His feet in the lonely hours of the night and to know the truth that what He requires, He provides. And that would have been more than enough strength for the day. But maybe that was the point. Maybe He was preparing me to pray for the strength to respond the next time He gives me an extra early wake up call. I sure hope so.