I remember sitting down in my very first meteorology class in college and hearing my professor ask us, “Did you look at the clouds this morning!?” I think everybody in the class thought “this guy is nuts – who looks at clouds?” Me, I wanted to raise my hand with much enthusiasm and say “Yes, I saw the clouds this morning!”
One thing I love is to look at the sky — and not just the sky — but the world in general. I think a lot of us don’t take enough time to intentionally stop and look around, whether it be at the sky, the flowers, the people, or the often overlooked, subtle, and “insignificant” things that dot across our eyes. Making an active effort to see the world in all its particulars is more than just seeing. It is seeing with understanding. You see, we aren’t just passive recipients who are spoon fed one thing or another. We are intellectual beings with a mind capable of extraordinary comprehension– shaping our perceptions to mean something to us.
Being an observer – but, more specifically, choosing what to see or hear – is taking ownership of your life. If you take time to see or hear something, especially if it’s something that puts things in light, then you develop the habit of accepting and appreciating what is good, true, and beautiful. Of course, there are things that aren’t worthour attention, but that is where we discern whether that thing is to be furtherexamined or not. God made us a beautiful world that expresses His beauty, love, and goodness toward us. If we can’t stop in our regularities to appreciate even the most simplistic or ordinary things then we limit ourselves of being capable to understand the fullness of God as far as we are able to in this life. I challenge us, therefore, to stop, observe something and take that thing into your heart to let it wrestle within you. You might be surprised by what that thing might do for you.
