At Least Getting it Down on Paper…ish.

An outstanding realization occured while reading Acts this morning: I found the person whom I can probably most likely identify with!

He’s not a major player or anything, and you might not have heard of him, so let me tell you a little bit about the man called Eutychus.

From the little town of Troas, Eutychus was part of a group of people, listening to Paul spin good yarn about the Lord, and break bread.  What it seems Eutychus was not prepared for, however, was how long that fine yarn would actually be spun…

Many lamps were burning in the upper room where they gathered, at least until midnight.  Eutychus thought he’d battle his sleepiness by sitting at the window for a reviving breeze.  Now let us hear from scripture what happens next:

Acts 20:9

And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.

There you have it.  If my livlihood were to be most closely portrayed by anything in the Bible, that’d be it.  But what I hope for, and pray for, is also what happened next to sleepy, or “lucky” Eutychus, for “lucky” is ironically the meaning of his name.

Acts 20:10-12

But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” 11 And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. 12 And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.

What I pray is that, despite my shortcomings, and my inability to stay awake, God will continue to revive me in His grace.  As I’m not capable of even the easist things, even when they are the most important for salvation, I must rely on God and God alone to see me through this.  And in THAT reliance, His name is glorified!

For more info on staying awake, see Matthew 24:36-44