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View Articles:
Spiritual CPAP
God's Providence, The Fear of Getting Caught
Overcome Evil with Good
Spiritual CPAP
August 27, 2008
“The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11)
How likely are you to doze if you are sitting and reading? Watching TV? Sitting inactive in a meeting (such as in church, listening to a sermon!)? Sitting as a passenger in a car for an hour? Lying down to rest in the afternoon? Sitting and talking to someone? Sitting quietly after lunch? Sitting in a car that is stopped for a few minutes?
The “Epworth Sleepiness Scale” asks similar questions that are answered on a scale of 0 (“no chance at all of dozing”) to 3 (“high chance of dozing”). If someone scores 9 or higher in response to the above eight situations, the advice is: “Seek the advice of a sleep specialist without delay.”
I don’t remember what my score was the first time I took the Epworth, but it was high enough for me to make an appointment with a doctor and go through a sleep study. The result of this was a diagnosis of a “sleep disorder” and a prescription for a CPAP machine. So now each night I wear a mask that is hooked up to a breathing machine that continually pumps 16 lbs/sq in of air into my nostrils. The net effect is that I resemble Darth Vader. It isn’t pretty, but I am certainly not as sleepy as I had been before.
The Scriptures warn us about something even worse than physical sleepiness. “Spiritual drowsiness” is the chronic condition of those who “live according to the sinful nature” and have “their minds set on what that nature desires” (Romans 8:5). Rather than being fully awake and functioning in the daylight, such people exist in a foggy state of consciousness—entertaining one dream after another of self-indulgence. They are not alert enough to be aware of spiritual dangers or sufficiently awake to engage in the spiritual battle around them. It is no wonder that they struggle to break free from behaviors that characterize those in darkness: “orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality, debauchery, dissension, and jealousy” (Romans 13:13).
Whereas only part of the population suffers from physical sleep disorders, the problem of the “sinful nature” (that is, the “flesh”) is universal to our fallen race. Even believers have the downward “drag” of a continuous demand for satisfaction of one desire after another. “Look out for #1,” “Live the good life,” “Go for it,” and “Feed the need” clamor both inside our souls and outside in the media. Just sorting through what’s legitimate and what is sinful can be exhausting. This is why the Apostle “prescribes” that we should “clothe [our]selves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). I see this as a kind of “spiritual CPAP”! In order to fight off spiritual drowsiness, you and I need to be “hooked up” to “Christ’s presence and power”—breathing in the truths “He is here and He is able.” When we get into that kind of “habit” it becomes more difficult to “think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
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©2006 Meadowbrook Church