Be Amazed!
In July of 2013, the cover article for Time Magazine was on “The Pursuit of Happiness” and stated that, “Americans are free to pursue happiness, but there’s no guarantee we’ll achieve it. The secret is knowing how — and where — to look…”
Jeffrey Kluger, a former attorney and current writer for Time Magazine made several fascinating observations regarding the American dream and our quest for happiness. The entire article is worth reading.
One thing he mentions is that since 1972, only one-third of Americans have described themselves as “very happy.” One third! That’s in a country that spent more than $118 billion dollars on traveling and vacationing in 2012!!
Jesus himself talks about what it’s like to find lasting joy:
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field” (Matthew 13:44).
The great writer and pastor from the 20th century, A.W. Tozer puts it this way:
God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.
The pursuit of JOY in God would be EASY, OBVIOUS, and something EVERY one of us would do quite naturally if it weren’t for this simple reality: the 1,001 OTHER pursuits that crowd our hearts and move God to the sidelines in our lives.
The prophet Isaiah asks a profound question to each of us:
‘To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?’ asks the Holy One. Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing (Isaiah 40:25,26).
The invitation before each of us daily is to pause throughout our days to BE AMAZED again and again and again by the greatness, bigness, power, and love of God.
Again, A.W. Tozer writes:
Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze at the heart of the Triune God.
But here’s the reality: we (at least I) cannot CONSIDER God for 30 minutes and get by on that for a week. The mountain of information, noise, inputs throughout the week will crush me if I don’t build into my life a RHYTHM and ROUTINE to stop and consider God…
To soak in God….
To consider His power…
To marinate in His grace…
So today… tomorrow… the next day… BE AMAZED!
Get rid of everything that keeps you from being able to focus entirely and exclusively upon God… AND JUST sit back and watch what happens in your life!
“Life” and its challenges will not go away!! But you’ll be different. What you’ll bring to those moments in life (even the super difficult ones) will be a transformed life because you’ve paused and reflected, you’ve tasted and seen the One who is incomparable and AMAZING!
God bless,
Ryan Snow
