all around me

Sometimes it's the simplest things that can evoke the most powerful emotions within us.

Tonight I was upstairs waiting on some laundry to finish. All the lights were off, and I was the only one in the house. The kitchen window above the sink was open, leaving nothing but the thin screen between me and the outside world. I walked over to the sink and put bent over just a bit so that my face could feel the wind coming in through the window. As the cool breeze swept across my face, I had one of those simple moments. A feeling of complete satisfaction, in which joy came upon me, tapped me on the shoulder, and left as soon as it had come.

C.S. Lewis spent a good part of his life pursuing this ever evasive kind of joy. The kind of joy that is like sneaking a peek behind the curtain of heaven and seeing something new for the first time.

The busier I am, the less I experience these intense moments of joy. And I think there's a simple reason why. When I'm busy running around, even with the best intentions, I just do not have the capacity to feel that special kind of joy. It's a bit like trying to look through binoculars at a bird in the distance. When I'm busy, experiencing intense joy is like trying to view the bird from the backseat of a moving landrover...it's nearly impossible.

The earth has perked up around me these past few weeks. One day while I was running, I looked away from the trail in front of me for a moment and realized that I was witnessing the dawn of spring. The buds were still sleeping the day before. But as I was running, the buds seemed to have just opened up overnight and cast a spell on everything around them. It was as if spring had come in the middle of the night, wanting to make some sort of grand entrance. Which it accomplished easily in my opinion.

These moments of joy don't have to be few and far between. The Psalmist writes that the Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. The King James makes it a little bit edgier to me, a little bit more majestic. Each day the glory of God is being displayed, by all parts of creation, both through the natural world and through humans.

My eyes, I fear, are not often open, though. My disposition becomes an entrapment. I focus on just the few square feet around me, seeing the world through the distorted lens of my selfishness. It is only when I take off these glasses, and allow the Lord to let me see with new, fresh eyes, that I am awakened to His goodness all around me.

What are we missing today?