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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Looking for God in all the small places

Sometimes we are guilty of looking for the "big event" when it comes to God's moving in our lives. Someone rises up and is healed and begins to walk.

A gift is given to pay off a huge debt.

A job is opened that has been prayed for, for months.

Yet, most of the times, God moves in our daily lives in ways that if we are not careful, we miss.

On January 12 the Washington Post conducted an experiment: What would happen if a world class musician performed elegant classical music on a priceless instrument in the Metro station of a major American city?

The city was Washington D.C. The musician was Joshua Bell, who can earn upwards of $50,000 for an evening's performance. The instrument was a 300 year-old Stradivarius valued at $3.5 million. The music included the works of Bach and other masters.

The experiment was captured on hidden camera. So, what happened? How did people respond?
During Mr. Bell's 45 minute performance, 1097 people passed by. 27 dropped spare change into his open violin case, for a total of $35.

And seven of them stopped what they were doing to listen for at least one minute.

The other 1070 people hurried past, oblivious, uninterested, unmoved.

We must also ask ourselves: how many times a day does something like this happen to you or me? How many times do we encounter truth, beauty, and excellence, without giving it a second look? How many messages of hope do we ignore? How many demonstrations of grace do we disregard? How many divine appointments do we overlook?

Ezra wrote these words: "But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage." (Ezra 9:8)

Let's make an effort to recognize -- and fully experience -- those brief moments of grace God sends our way. There were be at least few today. Will you see it?

1 comment:

Beth said...

God truly showed me grace today. I don't have a lot of choice sometimes when it's snowing, whether to go to work or not. I have to go make my visits to people who can't get out of their homes for their physical therapy. I should've learned my lesson the 1st time this morning when I nearly ran into a stop sign, but God protected me from hitting it. But I didn't learn my lesson, and I kept on working. I nearly was stuck in one person's driveway, then on the way home I came over a hill and lost control of my car, there were 2 cars coming toward me, one being a semi. God protected me, I began going off the road and suddenly found myself back on it. Not 100 yards down the road, the semi behind me started to jack knife. I believe God straightened his truck back out onto the road. These are my moments of grace today.