Sleeping With One Eye Open
Did you know that dolphins sleep with one eye open? It’s true.
They do so because they can only ever let one side of their brain sleep at a time. When the left side of the brain sleeps, the right eye will close, and vice versa. This isn’t some weird, ambidextrous stunt they’re pulling. Rather, it’s because they must always remain partially conscious to remind themselves to breathe.
You see, dolphins, unlike most sea creatures, are not fish. They are mammals. As such, they need to surface regularly to take in air. And for dolphins, breathing is not automatic or reflexive the way it is for humans. “In other words,” say the experts at us.whales.org, “dolphins have to actively decide when to breathe, … [They] alternate which half of the brain is sleeping periodically so that they can get the rest they need without ever losing consciousness.”
If a dolphin were ever to go into deep, full-brain, total unconscious sleep, they would simply suffocate or drown.
Likewise, believers can't afford to be lulled to sleep by the world but must remain alert, always ready for the Lord's return.
"But you aren’t in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won’t be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief. For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation" (1Thessalonians 5:4-8, NLT).
Old Testament Martial Arts
In a really insightful Facebook Reel, Bible teacher Mike Winger evokes memories of the famous "wax on, wax off" scenes from the 80s cult classic movie The Karate Kid to help illustrate how the development and study of the Old Testament helps prepare us in understanding the New.
When Mr. Miyagi asked Daniel-son to wax on and wax off and to paint the fence he makes him do it in a specific way, right? You can’t just wax on, wax off. No, no. You have to do it like this [Miyagi shows Daniel-son the exact motion]. … Then one day he just flips out, and ahhh, I hate this, this is the dumbest thing … ta da … Mr. Miyagi just starts attacking him. And so Daniel-son responds, doing his what? Wax on, wax off! And all of a sudden he realizes, like, oh, these are like blocks and stuff, like I’m, I learned how to fight karate!
But I think that what we have to do is look at the Old Testament, as our first time through it, as … like you’re just learning how to, like, paint the fence, wax on, wax off. And you may not fully get the reasoning of all that yet, but you get it in you so that [when] you come to the New Testament you can just explode with understanding of both the New and the Old.
Click here to watch the clip
He conclues,
Think about it this way. If there had been no Old Testament, no Passover, no prophecies, [and] Jesus shows up, dies on the cross … Nobody gets it! There needed to be this period of revelation to prepare people for Jesus Christ, to make sense of who He was.
"For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me" (John 5:46, ESV).
"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27, ESV).
Restoring the Church of God
On April 15, 2019, thousands of horrified Parsians and tourists looked on, many with tears in their eyes as Notre Dame was on fire. Many of us remember watching the fire as well, seeing flames shoot into the air and rapidly spread over the Gothic building’s roof, known as “The Forest” because of its long planks of 800-year-old wood.
The next day, the French President vowed to rebuild the edifice within five years. While many thought a complete restoration would take decades, five years later, the historic renovation is nearly 90% complete. 2,000 oak trees were sourced from forests around Europe for the rebuild. Some of them are up to 400 years old. They were left to dry for 12 to 19 months before the carpenters used them. The estimated cost was $760 million. As of April 15, 2024, 340,000 donors from more than 150 countries have donated around $895 million.
Ahead of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, work by this team of carpenters, scaffolding experts, professional climbers, organ mechanics, and others continues at the cathedral. While most of the modern building methods are being employed, there are tools that were re-created on site to match those used a thousand years ago by the original builderss.
We live in perilous times, when even the very fabric of the church is being burned to the ground by divisiveness, wokeness, radicalism, religious persecution, and the like.
If we, as a people are so inspired by God to rebuild and invest in a physical church edifice, how much more should we be inspired to invest in rebuilding His true church, the Body of Christ.
Our foundation is immovable, for it is Christ Himself! (1 Corinthians 3:11). We, as believers, are the very composition of that great, spiritual structure: "From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love" (Ephesians 4:16, ESV).
And let us look to Scripture to resurrect (pun intended) the very tools which were used from the beginning of the Church's construction, putting on love "which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Colossians 3:14, ESV).
1 Corinthians 3:
9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.