“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” – 1 Peter 5:8

What follows is 100% true…

I left Orlando this past Sunday night at 1:45 a.m. Pacific on a red-eye flight from LAX to Orlando (red-eye flights are overnight ones where you get little sleep and hence have red-eyes the next day).  I had been up since 6:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and by the time I landed in Orlando at Noon on Monday I had one hour of sleep in the previous 27 hours.  I felt fine, but the early signs of sleep deprivation were beginning to show. 

First, as I was getting off the plane I got a call from Tyler Powell, the Coordinator for Acts 29 Church Plants.  When the big cheese from Seattle calls, you focus and take the call no matter where you are.  So, I grabbed my things (so I thought) and deplaned.  After hanging up with Tyler, I realized that I had left my wallet on the plane.  Credit cards, ID, money.  All needed for renting a car and spending the week moving to and fro in Florida.

I tracked back through the airport and managed to find a Delta employee who boarded the plane (thankfully still at the gate) and retrieved my wallet.  I then picked up my suitcase from baggage claim and headed to get my rental car.

Nowadays, when you rent a car from Alamo you get to pick the one you want.  I asked an attendant which compact car had cruise control.  She pointed me to a nice Ford Focus; I put my suitcase in the trunk, my briefcase in the back seat, and then smelled something foul inside the car.  I decided to take a different car.  So, I grabbed my things (so I thought), jumped into another car and headed out to the first of my day’s appointments.

I drove two hours from Orlando to Ocala to meet a friend for lunch.  Then I drove another hour and a half north to Lake City to meet two ministry partners.  After dinner I drove back down I-75 to Gainesville to see a former staff member.  Then I headed to where I was going to spend the night, which was another hour and a half south.  It was 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time when I left Gainesville for my friends house in Crystal River.  I had slept one hour in the previous 36 hours. 

As I turned south from the two-lane Highway 24 onto Highway 98, the road was empty.  It was also a remote highway with little lighting or signage.  As I made my way down the road, I finally came upon some traffic headed the other way and they were strangely flicking their high beams at me.  I assumed the signaling was because of police speed traps ahead.  However, because I wasn’t going over the speed limit I didn’t pay them any mind.

Fifteen miles down this road later something started to feel funny about my trek on highway 98.  Cars kept flashing their high beams at me, but there weren’t any speed traps and my high beams weren’t on.  Then I noticed that the reflectors in the lines between the lanes were red and not white.  Finally, I looked to my right and noticed that another car was traveling parallel to me down a highway side road (so I thought).  Then it dawned on me…I was driving south on the northbound lanes of a FOUR-lane highway.  As the kids say, “OMG!” (‘G’ is for Gosh if you’re a gossipy fundamentalist).

I quickly pulled across the grass median to the southbound lanes.  A truck headed my way was now trailing me closely.  A few minutes later two state troopers flashed their lights and pulled me off the road.  They checked my sobriety and discovered that my BDCL (Blood Diet Coke Level) was high.  Not a crime.  They asked me if I had been taking any medication.  I explained that I was unsure where I was headed, and that I was following a GPS unit and unaware that I’d been on the wrong side of the highway.  They graciously told me to be careful and pointed me in the right direction.

Ever felt like you dodged a bullet?  I’m not talking about not getting a ticket for reckless driving (which would have been warranted), but avoiding a head on collision and my own death.  Worse yet, I thought about the lives I would’ve taken/injured/impacted by my sleep impaired driving.  God is gracious and His Angels protected many from my errors (a lifetime of this has taken place in one way or another – but that’s for another blog!).

To cap off this “Day of Impairment,” I arrived at my destination and opened the trunk to pull out my suitcase.  It was then that I realized that I’d driven off the rental car lot earlier in the day and forgot to retrieve my suitcase from the trunk of the car with the bad stink in it.  Alamo has no idea where this car is, as I could only identify it by its make, color and odor.  Not sufficient for tracking it down, as they have hundreds of Ford Focuses in their fleet.

So, I’m in central Florida this week to speak at a high school, meet with a mentor, visit some supporters and potential supporters, and be interviewed by a magazine and a radio station about my book.  But I don’t have clothes, toothpaste, or my good shoes.  All because of my sleep impairment.

What’s my point?  Well, I need to get my sleep. 

But for college students, I can only tell you that my years as a single man were filled with poor judgment and foolish decisions.  I can tell you without question that the majority of these bad choices were made under the influence of alcohol or some kind of drug.  Few – in fact, I can’t remember many – were made in a sober mindset.

Impaired judgment will impact not only your own life, but also the lives of anyone you happen to come in contact with along the way.  So, stay alert.

You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.  So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.  For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.  But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.  For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.  Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. – 1 Thessalonians 5:5-11