Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Captured by the Extraordinary within the Ordinary

My son, Josh, takes great pictures. He has the eye. He can see things no one else is looking at and then capture that on his camera. We’re so prone to look at the ordinary that we miss much of what’s there to see. One of his pictures he took in Denmark (while touring with the Jimmy Needham Band) was of a fishing boat. It was quite full of nautical type stuff. But on the back of the boat was a large spool of rope used to pull in the nets. What caught my eye was a seagull sitting on top of the spool. He wasn’t out of place. You might expect a bird to be in the scene, but for a moment it captured my eye. I wondered more about him than I did about the men who worked the boat or the boat itself. Was he just passing by and stopped for a rest? Did he have family nearby? Had he adopted this particular boat as his boat and followed it when it went out to sea? Had the fishermen named him and did he come when they called? Did he have an opinion about life that was worth pursuing?
For that moment, he was the more important image of all I saw in that picture. He had captured my attention.
In 1 Corinthians 2:9, Paul quotes: there are things which the eye has not seen yet and the ear has not heard yet and which have not even entered into the heart of man yet, that God has prepared for those who love Him. (CFS paraphrase) Meaning? There is so much more than the obvious. God is in things and places we might never expect. He is also in the ordinary. Even so, we might still miss Him because we aren’t captured by His presence or activity expressed in that moment.
                                                                                              
May my eyes see what they are capable of seeing, my ears hear what they are designed to hear, and my heart receive what it longs to receive—all that God has prepared in this day.

It is my hope for this blog that what I write might help you better see the goodness and greatness of our amazing God.

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