Are You Sober?
(We're not talking about alcohol here...)
Tonight, I put my 2 year-old to bed at 6:45 p.m. She wasn’t having a fit, or doing anything, really. She was simply being two in the most age-appropriate way possible: saying my name eight hundred times as she emptied every book from the basket in search of her favorite.
But in the eleven days since my husband left for Nepal, I’ve seen this endearing evening scene too often to appreciate it for the beautiful memory it will someday be. Another mess to clean up, and seriously, I’m right here! Fearing my waning patience getting the best of my tongue, I set the dishes aside, scooped up my lively toddler, and started her bedtime routine forty minutes early.
She went down easily, and our evening together ended sweetly. Our normal bedsharing routine has her falling asleep in her own bed, which is sidecarred to ours. But tonight as I tucked her quilt around her, she fixed me with those big blue eyes and asked, “Please hold me?” So I pulled her next to me, and within five minutes her breathing had shifted and she was dozing off. She felt so big and yet so little curled up against me. It was enough to shake me from the to do list and the weariness and the distractions my heart was chasing and pull me back the reality right in front of me. One might even say it sobered me right up.
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. —1 Peter 4:7
It is one thing to be self-controlled. Truthfully, the Lord has done much work on me in this area and I have learned to listen to the Holy Spirit in moments like the one above where Alice was trying my patience. I have exercised that spiritual muscle and, by the grace of God, find that my weakness isn’t in that particular area. But being sober-minded? Ah, that is a challenge.
Being sober-minded requires being able to shake off distractions and zero in on the moment at hand. For those of us who are mothers, juggling thoughts and tasks and the many, many words of our children, being sober-minded can seem like too much to ask. Yet, God does ask. Not only does He ask, He gives us two very good reasons to work towards it:
The end of all things is at hand.
For the sake of your prayers.
Now, whether the end of all things comes tomorrow or in 500 years, here’s what we know: time is fleeting. As mothers, we know this. We look at the soft curve of our baby boy’s jaw one day and the next we are seeing new angles and even wiry hairs appear. Be sober-minded. Jesus is coming. And even if it’s not in our lifetime, the end of what we know comes faster than we think. The end of our parents’ lives. The end of childhood. The end of the season where it’s easy to kneel in the garden for hours on end and not feel it for three days afterwards.
And oh, for the sake of your prayers. Prayers cannot be effective if they are not fully formed, thoughtful, and aware of the needs around us. Perhaps you need to pray for patience, or for your husband’s job. Maybe it’s your child’s character, or that the washing machine makes it until payday. Unless you are sober-minded, unless you have focused well on what lies before you in this day, you cannot be the prayer warrior that you were meant to be.
I’m grateful God cares enough to push us from our malaise and press us towards the growth we need. I’m not above needing a good shove now and then. Life finds its rhythm, and what we ought quickly gets lost in what we are. Being sober-minded is an effective tool in combatting that spiritual stagnation, and rebuking us from our focus on self. We can all use a little more sobriety, I’m thinking. How about you?
In Christ, Heather