God With Us

It was time for the kids to go to bed so Nichole and I began to get Maryah and Malachi ready for the night. As I was coersing my daughter to get her pajamas on, I heard a call from Malachi's room:

"Dad, come in here. And bring Maryah," my wife yelled out.

Earlier in the day Nichole had bought Malachi some new PJs. Not for any particular reason, other than him growing out of his clothes every eight minutes...just one of the perks of raising a 2 and 3 year old.

I walked to the room and flipped the light switch on, Maryah standing at my legs.

"Turn the light off," Nichole instructed me. So being the fantastic husband that I am, I did as my wife suggested. Then it happened...

Malachi's pajamas were glowing in the dark! Seriously! I didn't know they still made stuff like that anymore. I mean, with iPods, XBoxes, PS3s, the internet...who woulda thunk they still had time to make glow in the dark clothing? You've got to understand, when you're not expecting something like that, it's pretty amazing...even though it's small. So, I picked Maryah up and we went and laid on the bed with my wife and son. Here we were - all laughing and enjoying just being a family on a twin-sized bed. In the dark. With glowing pajamas.

Then it hit me...this is just too good. Whatever this is, I don't want it to end. I want this closeness, this feeling to be this real all the time.

A thought crossed my mind: This time. This place. This moment. Maybe it's all just a glimpse of God.

It seems that I'm always looking so hard to see God or hear a word from God or touch God, and I let moments like the 'glow-in-the-dark-PJ-incident' pass me by without a second thought. Those moments where everything seems to be right and in its place at its appointed time - maybe it's God. Of course, those moments aren't all God is, but perhaps this is what David meant in Psalm 46 when he wrote, "Be still and know that I am God." It's almost as if he were living in our culture today. Everything is always rushed. We're always looking forward to the next big point in our lives; our driver's license, the day we move out, the day our insurance premiums go down, the day we get a raise, the day we retire...and then we wish we had time to go back and really live, then it's too late.

And just maybe that's a picture of what true worship is; simply honoring and thanking God in everything - even the small, seemingly insignificant moments in life. We always hear about a 'lifestyle' of worship, but for the first time I understood what that meant outside of just behaving right. In a real, unpredictable, and pure way I could 'be still' and know God was somehow interested in being a part of my life.

We forget to take note of the small things in life. The small things that just might be more than what they seem. In those moments we need to be still, knowing that God is with us here...

In this moment.

In this place.

At this time.