Ephesians 5:14

14 Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

World English Bible, public domain

A voice calls into a dark room and tells the sleeper to get up. That is the picture in Ephesians 5:14: someone lying still, called to wake, and light reaching their face as they rise.

The verse is short and urgent. “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead” (Ephesians 5:14), it begins. Then it turns to what meets the person who gets up: “Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). The letter uses sleep and waking to talk about more than a good night’s rest. It is about paying attention, about coming out of a kind of numbness and into the day with your eyes open.

Most of us know both kinds of sleep. There is the plain kind, the one that ends with an alarm. And there is the other kind: weeks when you move through your life on autopilot, answering messages and running errands without really being present for any of it. The verse doesn’t scold either one. It calls, and it points toward light.

Picture a dark winter morning. The alarm goes off before the sun is up, and for a moment you lie there, heavy and unwilling. Then you stretch, arms over your head, and feel your own body again: stiff shoulders, cold feet, a breath that goes deeper than the ones you took asleep. Maybe you notice a strip of gray at the edge of the curtain. Nothing dramatic has happened, and yet you are awake. For some people that first stretch can become a small prayer, a way of saying “here I am” before the day asks anything of you.

You don’t have to be sure what the verse means, or whether you believe it, to sit with it for a few minutes. Some mornings the light feels close. Other mornings you wake still tired in your spirit, and the words land more like a question than an answer. Both are honest places to start writing, and we think a journal is a good room for that kind of not knowing.

Before you write

Try writing early, before the day fully wakes you, while you still remember what it felt like to be asleep. One prompt is plenty. Your first line can be as plain as “This morning I woke up and…” Then keep going and see where it leads. If you want more ways to begin the day on paper, the morning prompts offer others.

Journal prompts

  1. Think of the last time you woke slowly on a dark morning. What did your body notice first, before your mind started on the day's list?

  2. Where in your life right now do you feel half asleep, going through the motions without really being there?

  3. The verse pairs waking with light. Write about a moment when something, or someone, helped you see your own life more clearly.

  4. Write a short, honest prayer for this morning. Tell God where you feel heavy and what you would like to wake up to.

  5. Some mornings faith feels dim or far away. What would it be like to simply notice the light at a window today, without needing it to mean anything yet?

  6. Remember someone who seemed truly awake to the people around them. What did they do that you would like to learn from?

  7. Choose one small way to meet tomorrow morning with attention, like a slow stretch or a minute at the window. What will you do, and when?