Remaining saturated in the Lord is hard, but I would argue that remaining fully soaked in the current moment you are in might be harder.
It took a water fight with the kids yesterday to realize how often we do things merely to tell others that we did those things. As humans we study hard enough so we can take home and have our parents hang that perfect grade on the fridge. The next promotion or higher salary becomes the only thing we focus on so we can tell our coworkers about our success or buy that newer car model to show others we have “made it.” And maybe it’s that we participate in a water fight with kids rescued from a life of having sex in order to show our loved ones back home that we are REALLY, I mean really, doing God’s work over here.
That’s all wrong. God doesn’t want us to waste our time in the studying only for mom and dad to pat us on the back, that car will become old in two years just give it time, and those kids don’t need my pity. Striving for the approval of others, or to promote a life of falsely being all in, fully present, will get old and will never fill the crevices of your heart that just need Jesus.
How much will these pictures really mean to me in 20 years when I know I only participated “fully” to show others that I am one heck of a good missionary? I might as well delete them at that point.
But I can humbly say that yesterday as some of my teammates whipped out their phones to record, I didn’t.
Instead I got soaked.
Soaked in what God was doing in the hearts of those kids.
Soaked in the meaning of being fully there.
Soaked with water on one of the hottest days.
How incredible is it that the same God who created mountains, and oceans, and galaxies, looked at me and thought the world needed a Paige? And He goes a step further than that. That same God, the only God, decided that the moment before me would be THAT MUCH BETTER if I were in it. SO you know what? He created what was at hand for YOU and the least you can do is be fully YOU in it.
Take moments head on, folks.
Be all in. He doesn’t want you anywhere else.
