By Yesterday morning while I was at camp, having my quiet time, I was struck by the wonder of the early morning. Yes, I was awake and showered and outside having my quiet time before everyone else. In fact, I had finished my quiet time before I even saw another person out and about. While I was sitting there reading my Bible, I heard the morning songs of the birds, the air was fresh and there was this calm. I stopped reading for a moment and just took in the beauty of God’s creation. The amazing beauty of the trees around me, the crisp mountain air and the feeling that just came of peace.
This made me stop because I wondered how often do we have these opportunities to enjoy God’s creation and miss it? I chose to stop and just sit and enjoy what I was experiencing. I could take a picture or a video and post it to my Instagram of Facebook but then I would miss experiencing the beauty because I would be so focused in that moment on trying to capture the beauty that I would miss it.
How often do we see people so focused on their phones and taking pictures that they fail to experience the event? How often are we so focused on capturing what God is doing that we fail to experience God? How do we learn to balance experiencing the event and capturing events? For camp, I have been helping with tech and random stuff, and I don’t have any direct responsibilities with any of the children at camp. I am able easily to watch how God is moving in the lives of the kids, however, I can’t capture it and post it because we are not allowed to take pictures because the kids are foster youth and their pictures can’t be posted online due to confidentiality. This has forced me to just watch and see how God is moving in their lives, and I can write down later the experiences I need to remember. Maybe we can balance experiencing events and capturing events by being intentional about experiencing some of the events we participate in. Maybe we can make a point that we will only take a picture or a video if it is for a specific purpose or limit the number of pictures we take. What do you think?
How are you going to experience life? What changes are you going to make? Let’s chat!
