Staring at God

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2

This time last year was a very exciting season in the life of my youngest child. Last April she and her love got engaged and we began planning the perfect wedding. I won’t bore you with all the details of our vision but everything quickly unraveled with the virus. We went from a wedding of 180 at a museum to a small family and partial wedding party gathering in our back yard on June 13th. Over the past 6 weeks Bruce and I have exhaustingly transformed our woods and home into a wedding venue. I had become consumed with all the things required to pull this off and then I read this statement which convicted my heart. ‘We tend to stare at our lives and glance at God. We want to stare at God and glance at our lives.’ Jesus & Women, Kristi McLelland, p. 12. It fell upon me as a boulder from heaven and jarred my attention to how much I had been staring at our life. In addition, my pastor asked our prayer team to read about one of church members on FB, Bethany’s Butterflies. I became undone after reading her story and following the day to day heartbreak. Glancing at her story was glancing at God because you cannot follow that depth of need without crying out to Him on their behalf. 

God caught my attention by running my earthly chatter about the wedding parallel to spiritual chatter to God about this little girl. Glancing at God is never better experienced than when the prayer needs for another are great. Glancing at God is taking our mind off of restrictions in place because of the virus, and putting them on the injustice of police brutality in certain cases. I want to remember to only glance at my life but to stare at Jesus. I don’t want to miss a thing of what He can do in the lives of hurting people through prayer. I want to be witness to His power…to His presence…to His purpose in everything occurring around me. 

As we go into the week-end, I pray that each of us will stare at God and just shoot a quick glance at our life. ‘When we focus on…what concerns God, we devote more of our time and attention to Him, and the cares of our lives dim in comparison. As we behold Him, we are changed. Staring at God will change us in ways focusing on ourselves never can.’ p. 79