Does Christ Have Us on Airplane Mode?
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
— Ephesians 5:14
The Lord having us on airplane mode is an unsettling truth: Christ does not shine on us because we are impressive, disciplined, or spiritually eloquent. He shines on us when we wake up.
We often speak as though God is hidden. Yet scripture tells a different story. God is not the distant one; we are the distracted ones. The bush still burns, but we pass by without removing our sandals. The whisper still speaks, but our lives are filled with too much noise to hear it.
We have become people of hurry, performance, and endless distraction. Our days are crowded with movement but starved of attention. We carry candles through broad daylight and then wonder why they seem so dim.
Even faith itself can become strangely familiar. The words lose their weight. The prayers become rehearsed. Congregation language hangs around us like wallpaper we no longer notice. We know the hymns, the creeds, the verses by heart, yet the heart itself can remain untouched.
The prophets warned of this long ago:
“These people honour Me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from Me.”
There is a terrible distance between the mouth and the soul. And often it is in that distance where God seems most silent.
The early Christian fathers called this condition acedia — not open rebellion, but spiritual exhaustion. A slow drifting. A weariness of the soul. It is the feeling of moving through holy things half-asleep, waiting for God to speak while ignoring the voice already calling our name.
It is like asking why our mobile never rings while it remains switched off. We approach God in a crisis and have him on Do not disturb when life goes well.
So, heaven has not fallen silent. Perhaps we have simply not given God our all.
Paul’s words are not merely a warning; they are an invitation.
“Wake up, O sleeper…
and Christ will shine on you.”
Notice the order. We do not shine first and then receive the light. We wake, and the light is already there.
This is the miracle of awakening: not merely that we begin to see God, but that we begin to reflect Him. Like windows thrown open at dawn, we catch a brightness that was waiting for us all along.
So why does God seem absent?
Perhaps He has already passed by countless times unnoticed: in the trembling beauty of trees in the wind, in the unexpected kindness of a stranger, in the ache that rises in you while watching a sunrise alone. Perhaps God has not stopped speaking. Perhaps we have forgotten how to listen.
The call of the gospel is not always toward spectacle, but toward awareness. Toward attention. Toward waking up.
And like sleepers slowly rising at first light, may we rise too — not because we are worthy, but because Christ has already shone His light upon us.
Then, in time, like windows catching the morning sun, we too may shine.
