Under the Prairie Sky: When the Spirit Says, “Get Up”

At 4:00 in the morning, my alarm went off. My immediate response was: No.

I was staying at my brother-in-law’s farm and had set the alarm because I wanted to capture sunrise drone footage of a beautiful little country church nearby. It would be my first official day of filming for the virtual reality project I had written about in my previous Under the Prairie Sky reflection, a project I am creating for my Grade 10–12 Catholic Studies students.

The plan had sounded wonderful the night before. At 4:00 a.m., it sounded considerably less wonderful.

My body had a very convincing argument: You are tired. The bed is warm. Go back to sleep.

And then another thought came quietly: Get up.

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

As a Catholic Studies teacher, I regularly teach my students about St. Paul’s words in Galatians concerning the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit:

“For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh.” — Galatians 5:17

Usually I am standing in front of a classroom when I talk about those words. That morning, lying in bed negotiating with a 4:00 a.m. alarm, I found myself experiencing that struggle between flesh and Spirit firsthand. The lesson suddenly felt considerably more practical.

Of course, St. Paul isn’t teaching us that our bodies are bad. Sleep is good, and rest is necessary. Nor is every uncomfortable impulse somehow the voice of God.

The struggle between flesh and Spirit goes much deeper than that.

The “flesh” in Paul’s writing does not simply mean our physical bodies or desires. It describes the part of us that tends to put ourselves first, seeking what is easiest, most comfortable, or immediately satisfying. The Spirit draws us in another direction: toward God, toward love, toward sacrifice, toward others, and sometimes toward something we cannot yet see.

And that is what struck me that morning.

I knew what staying in bed offered me.

I had no idea what getting up would offer.

I got up.

Within ten minutes, I was grateful that I had.

Outside, the prairie was beginning to wake.

A thin, patchy mist rested close to the ground. The first golden light was appearing along the horizon. Birds were singing into the stillness of the early morning, and that little country church stood quietly in the landscape as it had for generations.

And something unexpected happened.

Before I launched the drone, before I captured a single image, and before I knew whether the morning would produce any useful footage at all, I felt an extraordinary sense of peace and joy.

I was simply grateful to be there.

Note: Video is best viewed on youtube at 4k! View video here on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYsC9gnehVc

Looking back, I think that distinction matters. It would be easy to tell this story as though I reluctantly got out of bed and God rewarded my obedience with mist and a beautiful sunrise. But that’s not really what happened.

The sunrise was already coming, the mist was already resting over the fields, the birds were already singing and the beauty was already there.

Getting out of bed simply allowed me to encounter it.

And that has left me thinking about something much larger than one summer morning.

What Are We Missing?

How often in life does the Spirit invite us toward something, while another voice tells us to remain exactly where we are?

Sometimes that invitation may be to pray when we would rather distract ourselves.

Sometimes it may be to forgive when resentment feels justified.

It may be to call someone who is lonely, apologize when our pride tells us not to, serve when nobody will notice, or take the first step toward reconciliation when we would rather wait for the other person to move first.

Sometimes the invitation may simply be to stop, to put down the phone, step away from the noise, and become present enough to notice the person or the beauty directly in front of us.

The difficulty is that we usually know what comfort offers. The familiar is predictable.

The Spirit often isn’t.

When God invites Abraham to leave his homeland, Abraham isn’t given a photograph of the destination. He is simply told:

“Go from your country... to the land that I will show you.”— Genesis 12:1

When Jesus calls Peter out of the boat, Peter doesn’t know exactly what will happen when his feet touch the water. Jesus simply says:

“Come.”— Matthew 14:29

And when Mary is invited into something she cannot possibly understand in its entirety, her response is:

“Let it be with me according to your word.”— Luke 1:38

Again and again, Scripture presents people with an invitation before they can see where that invitation will lead.

Perhaps that is why faith requires trust.

The Quiet Invitations

Most of us will never be asked to leave everything like Abraham or step out of a fishing boat onto the Sea of Galilee.

Our invitations are usually much quieter.

They arrive in ordinary moments.

A person comes to mind whom we haven’t spoken to in years. We feel the need to forgive. We sense that we should pray. Someone needs our time when we would rather keep it for ourselves. We recognize something in our lives that needs to change.

And somewhere inside comes the quiet invitation:

Go.

Call.

Forgive.

Listen.

Pray.

Begin.

Get up.

The remarkable thing about that morning wasn’t that I captured beautiful drone footage. I did, and I am deeply grateful for it.

The remarkable thing was that within minutes of choosing to get out of bed, I discovered that the thing I had been resisting was leading me toward peace.

Not because every difficult choice produces a beautiful sunrise. It doesn’t.

Sometimes following where God leads takes us somewhere difficult. Sometimes forgiveness hurts before it heals. Sometimes doing what is right costs us something. Sometimes we say yes and see no immediate reward at all.

But perhaps the question of the spiritual life isn’t always, “What will I receive if I say yes?”

Perhaps faith asks something different:

Am I willing to listen before I know where the invitation will lead?

That morning, the invitation was wonderfully simple.

The alarm went off. Everything in me wanted to stay beneath the blankets. And somewhere beneath all that resistance came a quiet invitation:

Get up.

I’m very glad I listened. Not simply because I captured beautiful footage, but because I discovered something I could not have discovered while remaining where I was.

The sunrise was already coming, the mist was already resting over the fields, the birds were already singing.

I simply had to get up to encounter them.

I wonder how often something similar happens in the spiritual life.

Perhaps an opportunity to forgive is already before us. Perhaps someone is waiting for our call. Perhaps a relationship is waiting for the first step toward reconciliation. Perhaps God is waiting for us in a moment of prayer we keep postponing. Perhaps there is an act of love, service or courage that will only become visible once we are willing to move.

We may not know what waits on the other side of our yes.

Abraham didn’t.

Peter didn’t.

Mary didn’t.

Faith does not always mean knowing where God is leading. Sometimes it simply means becoming still enough to hear the invitation and trusting Him enough to respond.

So perhaps the question I carried away from that quiet prairie morning is not really about getting out of bed at 4:00 a.m.

It is a question for all of us:

What might the Spirit be quietly asking of you?