take a moment

 

Today in the One Year Bible, we read from Isaiah 25:1-28:13. Isaiah is singing God's praises. He says, "O LORD, I will honor and praise Your name! For You are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now You have accomplished them."

Stop for a moment!!

... and think about that. God is outside of space and time. And He's God. He's immeasurable. His intellect is beyond our ability to even begin to fathom. And the things He's done, is doing, and will do in your life... He's had them planned since before the world began. You can just picture the excitement that He feels in waiting for you to experience, in wonder and joy, the little presents He has for you that He's literally waited for you to see... waited longer than we can imagine.

Think about that.

Now, I'm going to shift gears. I teach seventh grade English. And our theme this semester is choices. So at the beginning of the semester, I had them read several selections about characters making choices. But in addition to that, I taught them HOW to make a good choice. And before I taught them that, I shared a little factoid with them. I told them that studies show that teenagers (the kids I was, in fact, right then talking to) experience certain things in regard to their brains. I told them that teenage brains are very prone to act on impulse. Not to think through the consequences of their actions, but to rush to the first choice that seems good. They don't stop and consider all of their options and then choose wisely, but instead act impulsively and often regret their decisions later.

When I taught them this, some of them laughed. They said, "So you're telling US that WE don't make good decisions?" like "how can you look us in the face and say that??" But then I said, "BUT! it doesn't have to be that way. Now YOU KNOW this about yourself. So the next time you're faced with a decision, you can STOP yourself, and force yourself to go through these steps and make a good decision instead of just the impulsive, easy choice that you're naturally inclined to make." Some of them nodded and I could tell they were really absorbing that knowledge.

But you and I can learn from that, too. Because teenagers aren't the only ones who rush through their days without stopping to contemplate their decisions. They're not the only ones who are living unexamined lives. You and I do it far more regularly than we'd like to admit. In my FB post for this blog, I asked "is your life worth living?" because Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. Is your life examined?

So let's do what I recommended those teenagers do. Let's ACT on the knowledge that our default state is rushing without thinking. Let's MAKE ourselves stop and think about what God is doing each day. What little present He wrapped up eons ago, waiting for THIS DAY to come so we can take off the bow and wrapping paper and see the gift that will bring joy to our lives - and a smile to His face.

Take a moment.

God, thanks for all of the wonderful gifts You give us every day. Help us to stop and take a moment, and appreciate what You've done for us.