This week began with my team leader, Jake, asking/telling me that I was leading our group devotional on Monday morning. Nothing like getting volunteered to do things, huh? From the very beginning, however, I knew that I simply needed to share what the Lord had been speaking to me as of late. In turn, I would like to share that with you as well. The following passage (edited a little to fit our circumstances) is from one of my favorite devotionals by Fredrick Buechner.
“I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life as the ones we live open up into extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. Playing soccer with the kids in the streets. Chatting with the street vendors. Or even simply walking the streets and the
hills of Palenque for the 57th time that week.
There is no event so commonplace that God is not present. Always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or
not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compelling and hauntingly …. If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this.
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it. Because in the last analysis …
all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
This devotional reminded me of the passage in 1 Kings where Elijah is listening for the Lord’s voice. He waited through the wind, fire, and earthquake … but the Lord was not in any of the three. So many times we have our eyes open to look for the big things the Lord is doing – the great winds, fires, or earthquakes. But in doing this, we often times miss the simple moments of grace that surround us every day. In the end, the Lord spoke to Elijah through a gentle whisper. On a trip such as this, it is easy to be discouraged when we are fully prepared to see the extraordinary – and it doesn’t pan out in the ways
we have planned. The Lord has been teaching me and my team to trust in the Lord and the fact that He
is working. It was a good reminder to open the eyes of our hearts and minds to the every day lessons the Lord has prepared for us.
May you be encouraged as well. Blessings to each of you.
