Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life.

In the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Jeff Parrott.

Sometimes we listen to obnoxiously loud music, or we might pinch ourselves as hard as possible,

or we ingest unusual amounts of caffeine and sugar that would make our physicians squirm if they knew about it.

I have a friend who's even clung to a $20 bill holding it outside of his car window to accomplish this goal.

Of course, these are just some of the inventive, if not downright strange or unhealthy ways

that people have tried to stay awake when their eyelids are weighed down by fatigue while driving.

And while nothing can replace the wise, sensible choice of just pulling over to the side of the road

to rest, our odd attempts to stay awake on the road

indicate the significance of not only arriving to a destination, but arriving in a way that's

safe to others and ourselves. Many say that drowsy driving is on par with the danger of drunk

driving. We need to stay awake to complete the journey and do so in a way

that's faithful. Our shared need to stay awake on the driving roads of highways at interstates

is obvious to most people. Yet our need to stay awake on the journey of faith is often ignored

in our day-to-day lives. There's a kind of spiritual

sleepiness fueled by fatigue and distraction that can cause us to fall asleep at the wheel and

veer off course. Why does spiritual drowsiness matter so much? And what would it look like to stay

alert as we travel through the

life of faith together? To not only make it to the destination, but arrive faithfully. Those questions

are addressed in our passage today in Mark chapter 13. In this epic chapter of Mark's gospel account,

Jesus challenges us to be on guard against the

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