By His Grace

Our little budding musician

How cute is she!

Look Again

Recently, I was weeding along the back of the property (it’s a never ending activity!) Because of a tree in the way, I was actually kneeling on my neighbor’s yard and facing the back of my house. For most of the time I was face down, busy in the dirt. But eventually I needed to pause and rest. When I did I found myself seeing from an entirely new vantage point. The land itself is a little higher than the rest of the yard which gave me a better view of the roof of my house and the houses beyond mine. I noticed the leaves stuck in the gutter and the crack in the chimney. I also notice that the sky was bright blue with puffy white clouds, the kind you’d find in a painting. And until I looked up, I wasn’t aware of the gentle breeze swaying the many trees and bending the flowers towards the sun.

 

In that moment, it struck me how easy it is to become so familiar with something that you fail to actually see it. Somewhere I read that advertisers keep changing the look of their product because when we see something enough times we stop reading or noticing it. But a change will cause us to look again.

 

When I think back over my spiritual journey, I see that God often used moving me to another state or introducing me to new people or teaching me a new spiritual discipline to get my attention. My maturity as a Christian is closely aligned with times of change when I suddenly was looking at my life from a new vantage point. I know some people have a similar experience when they get a serious illness, or lose a loved one, or their job, or their marriage. There are lots of ways that God will reveal the truth about our lives. The key is to stop digging at those weeds in our soul and look up. At least once in a while.

 

It’s good to recognize that we have sin in us that needs to be removed and replaced by the flowers of virtue. Just don’t let it mesmerize you so much that you miss some larger needs of your soul (like a patch on my chimney), or the gentle refreshment of the wind of the Holy Spirit, or the light of God’s love shining down.

 

The next time you experience change of any kind – from water damage in the basement that requires remodeling the space, to a child going off to college, or the simple movement from day to night – stop and look up. See the world and your life from a different vantage point and ask God to reveal himself to you.