One item of technology here I rely upon probably too heavily is “Amazon Alexa.” I use her to play music, read audiobooks, or amplify the sound from my computer while watching a movie. One of the most important jobs of Alexa though is getting me up in the morning.
I’m unfortunately one of those people who likes to hit the snooze button on their alarm most mornings. I tell myself that it will only be hit one time, but it almost never works out that way.
- I’ll hit the snooze button three of four times
- Wake up incredibly late
- Then run around the house trying to make up for lost time
the beauty of having an alarm on my Alexa is it gets progressively louder, and you must get it’s attention by saying “Alexa….stop”, or “Alexa….snooze”.
Occasionally I would say snooze instead of stop, but usually by time I got out of bed, walked into the room, and got her attention, my body was awake enough to turn on the coffee pot.
A few weeks ago I learned something very interesting….
If I spoke loudly, Alexa could hear me while lying in bed!
no longer would I have to get up and ask her to stop. I would just have to say “Alexa snooze” from the comfort of my warm bed, and turn back over.
And so my hitting the snooze button “just one time” began again…and again it didn’t end with one time
My point here isn’t that we shouldn’t get a good nights sleep. Instead an illustration of how easy it is to choose laziness 1 over God’s Will.
The Lord has a calling for each one of our lives. That calling requires hard work, and self-discipline, as well as consistency or faithfulness. The choices of life though complex can be broken down into two paths…..
We can choose laziness, or we can choose discipline
The problem is that our hearts sinful-nature will choose laziness by habit. We will always tell Alexa to snooze from the warmth of our bed instead of getting up like God would want us to.
I realise this is a basic illustration, but it describes a profound truth because the smallest choices we make develop habits within our lives.
Every time I choose to snooze instead of getting up my “laziness habit” becomes stronger….
Every time I make myself get out of bed and start the day properly my “discipline habit” becomes stronger
This is why hitting the snooze button is such a big deal.
Far too often we don’t pay attention to the choices we make (and choose laziness by default). But a life spent hitting the “snooze alarm” will wake up far too late, and mourn the time that has been wasted.
- Or my will ↩
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