Don't Miss It
At Baylor, all students are required to take chapel. For most students, this means taking 2 semesters of it. Unlike any other class at the school, chapel was not for a grade, but was only pass/fail. And really, the only way to "fail" was if you missed more than 7 chapel classes. In chapel itself, there was one rule that the leaders/instructors were really particular about: no electronics. If you got caught on your phone, laptop, tablet, you got kicked out and weren't marked present. Admittedly, I wasn't the biggest fan of chapel and thought the "be present" rule that meant no electronics seemed extreme, but by the end of college, I understood why they had that rule.
We're inundated with screens a lot. Phones, laptops, tables, televisions, and so forth. With all these screens though, we end up becoming so inundated with them that we sometimes lose track of our surroundings or what's going on. We may even "miss" what's going on. Now, this isn't meant to be a knock on screens - after all, I wrote this on a screen and this is being read on a screen. Conversely, this is meant to say sometimes we "miss" things - screens or no screens. Granted, screens may cause us to miss more events, but that's another story...
It truly is important for us to be present. After all, being present affords us connections and interactions that technology just can't replicate. As good as online shopping can be, I'd rather physically go to the grocery store, see if an outfit fits, or hold a book and skim through it to see if it is what I want (Houston brick and mortar stores can rest easy knowing they'll always have one customer). However, sometimes in life we manage to "be present" and still miss what's going on - and we have ourselves, not screens (or anything else) to blame.
This past week, I've started reading through the book of John. There may not be a better example of people "missing it" than when Jesus Christ lived on this Earth. There He was - the messiah that had been prophesied and promised to God's people and yet, so many people "missed" Him. He was literally right in front of them, performing miracles, teaching lessons, and they missed it. Or at least, they didn't "get" it. The Pharisees' reaction to Jesus' miracles and teachings was...to plot to kill Him? They had been told there would be a messiah, a savior for them. Yet when He finally came...they wanted to kill Him. Instead of being in awe and accepting Him, they clung to their self-righteousness, pride, and own understanding . They missed Him and in turn, never truly "knew" Him.
When reading through John, it is easy to wonder how the Pharisees could be so off and "miss" what's going on. However, isn't that how it is in our lives? There's something incredible going on or unfolding right in front of us and we miss it or don't realize it until it's passed by and too late. It could also be that we may not have "missed" it but that we took what was in our life for granted and only realized that after the fact. In these instances, we could very well be "present" but still miss everything that's going on or what we have.
What is it though that causes us to "miss" what unfolds right in front of us? Well, one thing is that we all tend to live in our own little worlds and realities, kind of like how the Pharisees did in regards to Jesus. This can cause us to have distorted perceptions and views of how things truly are. We view events and people through our personal biases and agendas. Another cause is routine. When things become routine, we start expecting certain events to happen or things to be done because they always are. We hardly notice these things when present, but definitely notice these things when they aren't. A good example of this would be garbage men and custodians. I think we also "miss" things because we don't fully understand or comprehend people or processes. We don't understand the "behind-the-scenes" work people do because we never see or hear about it. We may not understand how tricky or difficult something is because it's always there for us and we never have to think about it. In the case of the Pharisees, this meant not comprehending what Jesus said when he made statements such as "I am the bread of life" - they took them literally and labeled such statements blasphemous.
Don't miss the things unfolding in life - or things that are already prevalent. That could be something as simple as a clean office space or relined trashcan. It could mean going outside and looking at the sky or clouds or taking a walk through nature. It could be seeing a friend grow personally or coworker grow professionally. It could mean a great friendship or the sacrifices made by a loved one. Whatever time or season that we're going through in our lives, there is something in it that we take a moment to enjoy - no matter how rough things may be right now. If we don't appreciate what we have now or who's in our lives now, odds are we won't until it's too late. There's not many feelings worse than the regret and guilt of realizing what we had but knowing it's too late, that we don't have what we once did.
Unlike the Pharisees, we don't physically have Jesus in front of us in our lives. But we do have Him in ourselves and through the works and actions of others. We've got a lot of great things in front of us - family, friends, palm trees, free food, and so forth (side note: some of these are clearly more important than others, of course). And we have them in our lives right now. We may not tomorrow, but we do today. Don't miss them. As a famous high school slacker once said, "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it".
We're inundated with screens a lot. Phones, laptops, tables, televisions, and so forth. With all these screens though, we end up becoming so inundated with them that we sometimes lose track of our surroundings or what's going on. We may even "miss" what's going on. Now, this isn't meant to be a knock on screens - after all, I wrote this on a screen and this is being read on a screen. Conversely, this is meant to say sometimes we "miss" things - screens or no screens. Granted, screens may cause us to miss more events, but that's another story...
It truly is important for us to be present. After all, being present affords us connections and interactions that technology just can't replicate. As good as online shopping can be, I'd rather physically go to the grocery store, see if an outfit fits, or hold a book and skim through it to see if it is what I want (Houston brick and mortar stores can rest easy knowing they'll always have one customer). However, sometimes in life we manage to "be present" and still miss what's going on - and we have ourselves, not screens (or anything else) to blame.
This past week, I've started reading through the book of John. There may not be a better example of people "missing it" than when Jesus Christ lived on this Earth. There He was - the messiah that had been prophesied and promised to God's people and yet, so many people "missed" Him. He was literally right in front of them, performing miracles, teaching lessons, and they missed it. Or at least, they didn't "get" it. The Pharisees' reaction to Jesus' miracles and teachings was...to plot to kill Him? They had been told there would be a messiah, a savior for them. Yet when He finally came...they wanted to kill Him. Instead of being in awe and accepting Him, they clung to their self-righteousness, pride, and own understanding . They missed Him and in turn, never truly "knew" Him.
When reading through John, it is easy to wonder how the Pharisees could be so off and "miss" what's going on. However, isn't that how it is in our lives? There's something incredible going on or unfolding right in front of us and we miss it or don't realize it until it's passed by and too late. It could also be that we may not have "missed" it but that we took what was in our life for granted and only realized that after the fact. In these instances, we could very well be "present" but still miss everything that's going on or what we have.
What is it though that causes us to "miss" what unfolds right in front of us? Well, one thing is that we all tend to live in our own little worlds and realities, kind of like how the Pharisees did in regards to Jesus. This can cause us to have distorted perceptions and views of how things truly are. We view events and people through our personal biases and agendas. Another cause is routine. When things become routine, we start expecting certain events to happen or things to be done because they always are. We hardly notice these things when present, but definitely notice these things when they aren't. A good example of this would be garbage men and custodians. I think we also "miss" things because we don't fully understand or comprehend people or processes. We don't understand the "behind-the-scenes" work people do because we never see or hear about it. We may not understand how tricky or difficult something is because it's always there for us and we never have to think about it. In the case of the Pharisees, this meant not comprehending what Jesus said when he made statements such as "I am the bread of life" - they took them literally and labeled such statements blasphemous.
Don't miss the things unfolding in life - or things that are already prevalent. That could be something as simple as a clean office space or relined trashcan. It could mean going outside and looking at the sky or clouds or taking a walk through nature. It could be seeing a friend grow personally or coworker grow professionally. It could mean a great friendship or the sacrifices made by a loved one. Whatever time or season that we're going through in our lives, there is something in it that we take a moment to enjoy - no matter how rough things may be right now. If we don't appreciate what we have now or who's in our lives now, odds are we won't until it's too late. There's not many feelings worse than the regret and guilt of realizing what we had but knowing it's too late, that we don't have what we once did.
Unlike the Pharisees, we don't physically have Jesus in front of us in our lives. But we do have Him in ourselves and through the works and actions of others. We've got a lot of great things in front of us - family, friends, palm trees, free food, and so forth (side note: some of these are clearly more important than others, of course). And we have them in our lives right now. We may not tomorrow, but we do today. Don't miss them. As a famous high school slacker once said, "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it".
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