January 18, 2017 7:30 PM
It’s quiet now. The last 30 minutes have been anything but. After dinner tonight, a spontaneous dance party broke out in our house. This happens often in our home, but not often enough that I take it in. Too often I watch for a little while and then it’s off to do something else…a practice to go to, getting everyone ready for bed, news I want to catch up on, actually have more than five minutes to talk to my wife before we both are called into a deep slumber after another long day… something inevitably tries to get in the way of the ever fleeting “moment.”
We talk often among ourselves at E6 Ministries about being intentional, another way of saying “be in the moment.” How often I wonder, are we ever really intentional, when so many “things” call out to us, the ever present tyranny of the urgent. But not tonight, not this night. Something called me to be still, to remind me not to miss it and it wasn’t my beautiful wife this time. It was a jealous voice longing to be in the moment like my girls were. They were being themselves, in the moment. I found myself completely jealous of their total freedom. They know little of the responsibilities of being an adult and nothing of the constant churning of thoughts a parent processes in a day. No, they were being who their Father created them to be, free, free indeed.
I was reminded, convicted even through the joy of their freedom as they danced about. How often I miss it, these moments, these gifts of life. Jesus never missed a moment. He was always looking for the joy or lesson or opportunity to love with every encounter in life. But you see, that’s exactly it. If we have chosen to follow Jesus, we are to be intentional, it’s not an option not to be. We are to recognize, even expect to find these moments and go all in.
Of course, the enemy tries deter or keep us from these moments, and attempts to pull us out of the moment with a thought or a distraction so that we may not experience true life when these moments come. Peter warned us that the enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but what does the enemy truly want to take? He wants to take life, but why? Because that is exactly what Jesus came to give, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” he tells us. Brothers, Life is found in these kinds of moments and Jesus knew it, because he is the Author of life. I implore you to Live in such a way that you expect moments, and when they come, dance or jump or fly or listen or love, whatever the moment calls for, but above all…live.
