Awakening

In our hearts Lord, in this nation, awakening
Holy Spirit, we desire awakening
From the song “Awakening” by Chris Tomlin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_J9BI6AFO0

This morning, I finally realized why the song above tugged at my heart both times when we sang it at worship. I first heard it (not for the first time) last Friday when I attended a worship meeting at school. When it played, I got a sense in my spirit about what the Holy Spirit seemed to be telling me but my mind still needed to play catch up. I had to wait to understand what He was saying. At our church’s service on Sunday, the same song was sung. Since the song above was quite new here in Chiang Mai and not very popular yet, and two different worship groups played it, it resonated even more within me. Yet, what was I to get out of it?

Since arriving here on October 3rd after three weeks in Toronto, I felt like I landed in a sprint. I spent the first four days buried deep in my textbooks, lectures, and handouts from my online course. I couldn't do any of my course work the first two weeks in Toronto because of my mother’s viewing and funeral, subsequent 9 days of prayer times with my family, and family meetings. On the last week, I purposely didn't do any of the work, choosing instead to have some quality time with my father. Although, I know I chose how to spend my time wisely, it nevertheless meant I had to catch up on 3 weeks’ worth of late online postings plus keep up with the homework on the week we were in. Typically, a week's workload is enough to keep me busy for hours. Four weeks’ worth of work in four days was just brutal! I hardly slept and subjected my body and mind to hard mental labor.

I stopped just to eat a Thanksgiving Dinner and was soon reading again about my course, the theology of the Old Testament. In the end, I finished my homework (Praise God!) but I was soon back to school and trying to make sense of what I used to do. Suffice it to say that with my mind so tired, thinking about how to teach Elementary ESL stretched me to the limit. I had to postpone eating lunch and meeting with anyone until I could have a handle on what I was doing. After a week of that, being organized and comfortable with teaching finally resurfaced today. I also began to eat at the lunch room again and met with a friend. I heard her stories and actually remembered them. =) When we prayed, the semblance of normal began to creep back in.

Finally, the certainty that the Holy Spirit had been drawing me to Himself became very clear. In the emotional three weeks there, and busyness and craziness in settling back here and doing my work, somehow, our intimacy was affected. I never stopped praying to Papa God but because I had no time to just be still to receive from Him, I was literally drying up from the inside. I haven’t had the inclination to worship the Lord using the keyboard and it’s been five weeks! I began to understand today, that as indicated by the song’s lyrics, my heart’s yearning was to be awakened. I wanted to be back in His arms receiving from Him. He’d been prompting it. And, there is no place I’d really rather be! Thank you, Lord, for calling me to yourself. Yes, please awaken me.

For You and You alone, awake my soul
Awake my soul, and sing
For the world You love, let Your will be done,
Let Your will be done in me.