Pay Attention

I was reading a blog post today on the blog Practicing Intentional Gratitude. Great post. When you have time, go read it.

She begins the post with the suggestion that we might find a new way to consider the Kingdom of God if we substitute "the kingdom of heaven is like" with "God's love is like."

Consider:

God’s love for us is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

God’s love for us is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

We so often overlook the work of God in our lives. We walk through life without seeing his touch, his love, his concern. Consider, though, one of last week's lectionary readings -- "Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." God is all around us, and we don't know it.

So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.

I read somewhere that if we kept our eyes and ears open, that we would find rocks everywhere that were covered in oil, but we overlook them.

I mentioned yesterday that I felt like I was in a rut. One of the symptoms of that spiritual rut to me is that I'm not seeing oily stones. I'm not seeing the tiny ways in which God makes his presence known. I know he's here; the fact that I'm missing the evidence of his touch in everyday life doesn't mean that he's not there -- it means that I'm not paying attention.

I need to pay more attention.