Choose a place that you normally walk past, but instead stop there for 15 minutes. Be still and simply turn on your senses. The author Ken Gire calls this discipline spotting "windows of the soul". Ask God to reveal things to you about his creation and his character from what you see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. Only when we stop for long enough to examine life in all its fullness, can we actually appreciate it, and worship the hands that are pulling the strings.
I'll never forget taking about 20 Youth For Christ volunteers to 2 separate fixed points; one looking down over a valley, and one in the centre of a town. They came back and shared many, many insights that God have given them during the 15 minutes in both places. Every single one of them was different! Everyone reported how strange, but refreshing it felt to just drink in God's world.
When I do this, I always notice something for the first time. It is always something that I would never have noticed if I had kept moving. The sheer volume of cars that pass a given point in 5 minutes. The stress on people's faces. The large number of text messages that are continually being bounced back and forth in a shopping centre. The subtle differences in the shape of a tree's leaves. The purity of the sun. The fact that no building no matter how high, even gets close to the sky. The tiny little insects whose names I will never know. The variety of colours available to an artist. I could go on, but the world is yours to discover and love. There is such complexity and such beauty combined with so much pain. Let's stop for long enough to take it in.
From God 360°, written and copyright © 2006 Andy Flannagan
Reproduced with permission from Andy Flannagan.
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