Waking Up to Jesus

Special Christmas Eve Installment

Don’t hit the snooze button. This is an awakening you don’t want to miss.

Thomas Edison was one of the greatest inventors in American history, responsible for the phonograph, the motion picture camera and early versions of the electric lightbulb. He had more than 1,000 patents to his name.

But as brilliant as he was, Edison would sometimes experience a creative block. To get his mind unstuck, he used a trick — one that involved going to sleep.

According to The Washington Post, Edison “would sit in his favorite chair holding steel balls in his hands and begin to doze off.” Once he fell asleep, the balls would drop from his hands into metal pans on the floor. The loud noise would startle and awaken him. “Edison claimed that he would often wake up from these catnaps with new ideas to continue his work.”

Most of us know the value of delaying a big decision to the following day. We say, “I’ll sleep on it,” and often this helps us to clarify our thinking. But just as important as sleeping is waking up —...