Oh so many Gifts
By: Missionary Team
Our lives fly by so fast sometimes, and so often we forget to stop and look at all the oh-so-many gifts our Lord gives us on this path of life. Have you ever really stopped and just looked at this world? And no, I don't mean just nature, I’m asking you to look deeper. Look around, even if you're just in your room! It's beautiful... Why the heck is everything here!? It's amazing, it’s crazy! None of these things had to be here. But God, out of nothing (and I mean that as what rocks think about) made EVERYTHING out of utter love! Each little thing is a gift to you, it was created for you, for you are His beloved. Each little thing reflects His Face, and the more we stop and see these gifts, the more we see and are able to recognize the face of God.
There is a simplicity our Lord is asking us to have. Our Lord is asking us to humbly look at our world through the eyes and heart of a Child (Matt 18:3). Children are in awe by simplicity, and so should we. When did it become normal and no big deal to take a breath? When did it become no big deal to feel the texture of a piece of paper, the textures all around us? When did it become no big deal to be in awe every time we look at the oh-so-many beautiful colors our Lord has made? I think it breaks our Lord's Heart that we take no notice of these things.
They are such precious gifts that we take no notice of. It's like we're asking for more when we’ve already been given so much... I think so many people want a crazy spiritual experience that will change their life and set them on fire for the love of Christ. Maybe they want a vision or maybe they want to hear the voice of God! But we see a vision of God already, and we hear His voice so often. We see our Lord’s Face every time we look at anything, everything no matter how small is so beautiful. And we hear his mighty voice every time we hear anything, because every time was created by Him, and that includes the beauty that sound is. The sound is crazy... Just think about it.
I guess in all of this, I am trying to say that so often we overlook the gifts our Lord gives us in our day to day, and if we really stopped and tried to count all of them we would never stop counting. Often when I’m struggling with discouragement or thinking too much about the future, being discontent with the present, or if I catch life just skipping along faster and faster, I’ll stop, and instead of rebuking all those different things so that I can enter back into the future, I’ll look around, I’ll feel the texture of something near me, I’ll hear the sounds all around me.
God is so close. He is so, so close... and when I do this all those things I’m struggling with melt away, because everything is consumed in the fire of God’s love. And the more we see these gifts of love the more we too will be consumed by that same fire because we will see more and more how much our Lord loves us. How can we be discouraged!? As one of my close friends, who’s a priest, told me, “Don’t rebuke discouragement so that you can enter back into the present, enter into the present and that will rebuke the discouragement on its own.” This is so simple but so profound. So stop... stop right now and see the face of God in everything around you... hear his voice in the noises around you... and fall in love...
P.S. Don’t forget to thank him :)
