I Want to Recognize Him Everywhere

I opened my devotional today and found these words:

"O Lord, where did I see You yesterday...and didn't recognize You? Where will I encounter You today..and fail to identify You? O my Father, give me eyes to see, a heart to respond, and hands and feet to serve You wherever You encounter me! Transform me, Lord, by Your Spirit into a servant of Christ, who delights to meet the needs of those around me. Make me a billboard of Your grace, a living advertisement for the riches of Your compassion. I long to hear You say to me one day, "Well done, good and faithful servant." And I pray that today I would be that faithful servant who does well at doing good. In Jesus' name I pray, amen." Max Lucado

Tears began to flow as I pondered how often in the past year He was present and I refused or neglected to see Him. How many times did He want to use me as His vessel and I passed up the opportunity because I was too busy with me? 

I want today to be different. Oh, we say things like that. We have good intentions, but then what happens? We get busy. We get angry. We get wounded. Life happens and we put God and all He has for us aside not even thinking that if we made Him the focus everything would change. 

Each person who walks into my path isn't just by happenstance. There isn't any such thing as coincidence. God places people in our path for a purpose. Sometimes it is for us to bless them and others it is for them to be a blessing to us. 

We waste so very much time don't we? For some reason we think we have all the time in the world. We put off things for tomorrow. We give up on yesterday. We wish away our tomorrow by always wanting something more, something else, something different than what we have already. Where is God in that {me} stuff? 

We expect so much, but we are willing to give so little. We expect others to be everything we need. We expect others to forgive us. To do the impossible for us. We live in a world where Jesus isn't accepted and when we choose to place Him first in our lives we too become unaccepted folks by those who refuse to recognize Him as Savior. 

But see, that isn't to matter to us. We are to walk in faith. To be those lighted billboards that shimmers Jesus to the world. We are to live grace and mercy. We are to be His light-bearers to the world around us.

We live for others. We live to be noticed and appreciated. It's easy for us to live always wanting more. We have become people pleasers afraid to say the word NO to people, but in doing so that leaves no room to say YES to God. I wanna be the girl who says YES to my God and does so with a willing and excited heart to anticipate ALL He has for me in the journey. I wanna live expecting to see God's glory all around me. We are so amazed when we see God do something. Really? What else would we expect from our God? I don't mean to live in such a way that we are not in awe of Him, but let's stop being so shocked when we hear He has done something wondrous. After all, this is the God who created us and loves us. He wants nothing but the best for us. What are we willing to give to Him? Maybe this year we shoot for giving Him our all and always looking to Him to show us the way, to give us the opportunity, and to equip us with all we need for the purpose to bring nothing but glory to Him.

"When we fail to choose to live our lives fully awake, the ashes will extinguish the beauty, the mourning will smother the joy, and the despair will end our praise. When we sleep to the dreams inside our hearts, the message of love will become nothing more than a nice idea. Yet when we awaken to the dreams God has placed inside of us, our very lives become the beauty, magic, and wonder that the world needs." Joel N. Clark