EDITOR'S NOTE: Since becoming the clergy leader at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn., in November 2017, I've written a monthly column for our church newsletter. This column originally published in the November 2019 FLC Newsletter.
I wonder … where do you see God in action throughout the day?
I became intrigued about this question after a recent seminary class assignment I completed.
The assignment was simple: Choose one day and commit to taking a photo of your
surroundings once every two hours for 12 hours.
So, essentially you’d end up with a total of six photos capturing your surroundings at all the various stages of the day. For instance, a photo in the morning, late morning, lunch time, early afternoon, late afternoon and then again in the evening. Six photos capturing the regular times of your day. Right where you were at that moment your “alarm” went off.
After you had your photos captured at the end of the day, you then had to review them and describe in each where you saw God at work. … Simple enough, right?
Now, pick three of the photos and you only get three words to accompany the photos to explain where you saw God at work. … That makes it a lot more challenging! But that’s an entirely different story!
Interestingly, after I completed the exercise and wrote a short reflection paper about it, I realized I’d gained two insights from the exercise.
First, sadly, on a normal day, I am so busy that I go vast stretches of the day without ever once stopping to take a look around me and discern where God might be at work. In fact, I have to embarrassingly admit that sometimes I don’t do so until the entire day has passed. Not until I’m sitting down for the evening, after everyone else has gone to bed and I’m reflecting on the day that was. This assignment helped me realize that I just do not pay attention to God’s work enough!
And second, after being forced to discern where God is at work while I’m sitting at a conference table during a company executive retreat, or in my car as I’m flitting about to my next appointment, or standing behind a concessions stand at my daughter’s “glow dance” at school, it reminded me that God really, truly is present and at work everywhere we are if we just take the time to look.
For instance, the team that works for me at Modulist is small, tight-knit and they like each other a lot. During one of the photo breaks it was a joy to stop what I was doing and just listen to their friendly banter for five minutes. These people have become a true blessing to each other, and it took me to be forced to stop and recognize that before I noticed it.
In addition, being forced to stop and take note of my surroundings at times that normally I would just be plowing ahead with my daily tasks, made me realize I miss so many tiny, beautiful nuances of this mysterious world. For instance, the miraculous colors of the changing leaves, and the beautiful songs of the birds still hanging about. The pure white of those big, fluffy clouds on a clear, autumnal day. … You get the picture.
Even the piercing, shrill laughter of the preteens at my daughter’s school dance was a pleasure when I recognized that it was the soundtrack to pure, unadulterated joy. Those sounds that normally would make me cringe and wonder why I had volunteered to help at the concession stand, this time around made me think back to my own school days as a sixth-grader. About how big and exciting the world was at that age when it was just you and your friends at a school dance on a Friday night. … What a pleasure to take that trip down memory lane thanks to those kids!
So, I wonder, what if I gave you the same assignment? … Even if you don’t formally complete the project by documenting everything in a photo, what would it look like for you to pick a day, and for 12 hours, every two hours, just stop what you are doing, take a look around you and determine where God is at work. What would you see? And what new revelations about our God would come to you?
I encourage you to try it out! … Report back to me what you find when you stop six times in a day to see where God is at work around you. I bet you see some remarkable things, and I bet you come away with a bit more gratitude about the complexity and the beauty of this creation we call life!
I know I did! … God bless!
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