Intentionality

Did you ever contemplate the many layers to life?
Did you ever think that we see with our eyes and measure with our rulers is not all there is?
Did you ever wonder about a thing until your puzzler was sore, as the Grinch lamented?
Did you ever take the time to study what seems insignificant and see its wonder?

Did you ever watch a raindrop dance along the window?
Did you ever notice the leaves as they turn their backs on us before a rain storm?
Did you ever ponder the number of times a hummingbird flaps its wings?
Did you ever concentrate on the design that drop of oil makes when it is placed in water?

Did you ever think about the time it takes for your hair to grow?
Did you ever wonder where dimples come from?
Did you ever think about the reason cows lie down in a field?
Did you ever become amazed that a dog knows the storm is coming before you do?

Does it amaze you that a newborn baby turns to the sound of his mother’s voice?
Does the movement of the clouds across the sky astound you?
Does it intrigue you that you can perfectly recognize a song by only a few notes?
Does it cause you to marvel when you look up at a night sky?

We go about our days unaware.
We have our routines and there never seems to be time to think and ponder.
We have our lists and they must get done.
We look at our days as something we must complete.

Looking at something is very different from looking along something.
Looking at something sees it empirically.
Looking along something sees the layers.
The layers will always point to the Source.

In his essay, Meditation in a Toolshed, C.S. Lewis pondered this very thing.

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.

Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.
Lewis was right.
Lewis saw the ordinary and pondered the sublime.
Lewis was making a statement about a Christian worldview.

In essence, we must learn to look along the sunbeam and see the sun.
We must learn to look at the blessing and see the Blesser.
We must follow the sunbeam right to its Source.
As Lewis said in his essay, when he looked along the beam everything else vanished.

Do you tend to look at things?
Do you ever take the time to look along them?
Looking along rather than at something takes time and attention.
Time and attention in our busy culture is something that demands intentionality.

If we do not take the time to really ponder things, how much less do we ponder God’s Word?
If we read God’s Word at all, we fly through it.
We are on a mission to get our quiet time done for the day.
We read God’s Word but we claim we don’t get anything out of it.

The problem is not with God’s Word.
The problem is with us.
God’s Word is not a fast food meal.
God’s Word is a feast with course after course being set before us.

We would never dream of flying through a meal at a five star restaurant.
We would enjoy every minute of the experience from the ambiance to the food in front of us.
We would enjoy every course as it comes, anticipating the one to follow.
We would expect to linger at the table and savor every morsel.

It is no different with God’s Word.
We cannot look at God’s Word.
We must look along God’s Word right to the Source.
We must look along the words on the page in order to see the Word.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.
(Psalm 1:2)

The Psalmist saw the Word of the Lord as a feast to savor.
It is not a meal to rush through.
That savoring is his delight.
He is not looking at the Word of God but rather, he is looking along it.

 

Wayne Stiles (Insight for Living Ministries) took a picture of a stop sign.
He posted the picture on his blog in April 2012 and wrote:

What a great sign! After snapping the picture, I pulled to the side of the road and watched the next five cars that pulled up to the stop sign. Only one stopped. The rest rolled on through.

Later, I got to thinking about the intersection. “STOP—Ponder Scripture.” The command is there—and at a crossroads many stop at every day. Yet the surrounding neighborhood seems unaffected. They see the stop sign—but not the street sign.

Stiles agrees with Lewis.
We look at but we do not look along.
We roll right through our days without really noticing most of what we see.
Try to be intentional today to look along rather than at the things God places before you.

You will be amazed at what you see.