By Jeff Scoggins

My parents were light sleepers when we were kids so I don’t know how I managed to leave our apartment in Beirut, Lebanon, without waking them. I was about 9 years old, and I have no recollection whatsoever of leaving; but when I woke up I found myself in pitch-blackness in an unknown location.

Apparently I didn’t wake up all the way because even though I remember what happened, I was clearly not completely conscious. My situation didn’t concern me in the least. It seemed normal or perhaps like a game. Maybe I thought I was dreaming.

I remember thinking, I wonder if I can discover where I am without turning on the lights. Arms outstretched before me I took cautious steps. My movements echoed around me, so I deduced that I was in a cave or concrete room of some sort. I encountered a cold metal door on one side, concrete walls on two other sides, and stairs on the fourth side.

Eventually, I gave up unable to figure out where I was. It was time for light. Oddly, with my subconscious in control, I suppose, I walked straight to the switch and flipped on the light. Ah! Everything made perfect sense now. I knew where I was, though I was still asleep enough that I didn’t question why I was there.

I found myself in the stairwell on the basement level of our apartment building. The metal door led to the bomb shelter, the stairs led to our apartment two stories up. I bounded up the stairs to our level and knocked. The apartment doors locked automatically and for some reason I had neglected to bring my key. No one answered at first so I knocked again.

Eventually I heard someone on the other side of the door trying to peer through the peephole to see who was knocking at such an hour. I was short and therefore invisible. Then I heard the voice of my father. At this point my recollection gets fuzzy again, but I think the conversation went kind of like this, “Who’s there?” my father called.

“Marhaba,” I replied. (“Hello” in Arabic).

“Who is it?” my father asked again, understandably reluctant to open the door.

“Marhaba!” I said more loudly.

“I’m not opening the door until you tell me who you are,” said my father firmly.

I yelled, “Daddy, let me in!” My voice ricocheted violently up and down the concrete stairwell.

The door flew open and my father stood looking at me dumbfounded. “What are you doing out here?”

I don’t remember my reply exactly but I think it amounted to, “Let me go back to bed.” I was no more successful explaining myself the next morning either.

You might laugh at this story but, in a manner of speaking, it isn’t uncommon. Spiritually speaking we are all sleepwalkers to one degree or another. Paul says, “So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled,” (1 Thessalonians 5:6).

We are born asleep, really; but eventually most of us wake up enough to realize that we are lost in darkness. However, we aren’t very awake at first because our situation doesn’t seem cause for alarm. It seems normal, in fact. Oh, we may try superficially to figure out where we are, but we treat it kind of like a game. I wonder if I can find my way without the lights.

It’s only when we finally realize that we need the light that things begin to come together. And, interestingly, we know precisely how to locate the switch. It’s like it was programmed into our subconscious all along. We call out for God and suddenly we see our way. Only it is he who is knocking and we who are reluctant to let him in.

But I can tell you, when you do open the door you’re going to be dumbfounded at why it took you so long.