Like a scarlet cardinal on a gray day, God may come and surprise us
By Stephen Waers
As I sat down to write this devotion, I found myself staring out the window and daydreaming on a dreary winter day. Most everything in my field of view was some shade of gray or brown. There was even a dense fog advisory blanketing everything. But then a pair of cardinals came and perched on the top of the wooden swing right outside my window. I didn’t expect to see them there in the middle of the winter. The brilliant red of the male cardinal was a stark contrast to the gray-brown wood of the weathered swing. If it hadn’t been for that bright red, I might not have noticed the two birds.
That experience reminded me, in some ways, of my drive to work. When I get into my routine and am doing a familiar task, I often drift into autopilot. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of driving a normal route, arriving at your destination, and realizing that you don’t remember any of your drive. It is much like staring out the window without looking at anything in particular or really seeing anything. Psychologists have a number of ways of describing this phenomenon, but we often call it “daydreaming” or “mind wandering.”
Psychology aside, the interesting thing to me is that something can pass right in front of our eyes without us “seeing” it. But our inability to “see” the thing is not a problem of optical equipment; it is a problem of focus and attention.
Evaluating routine
On the tail end of winter break, I find myself yearning for my routine. I’m ready to leave the house at the same time every morning, drink coffee out of the same cup, get stuck behind the same slow cars on the way to work. I’m ready for the predictability, order, and structure of the quotidian and mundane. But as we move forward from Christmas into the new year, I’m reminded that occasionally the mundanity of our routines can be dangerous.
A series of occasional posts by one of Dean’s friends
telling us how they pursue the challenge of daily obedience to Jesus.
Once we get back into the familiar repetition of our everyday lives, it is easy for our brains to slip into autopilot, our eyes to lose focus, and things to pass right in front of our eyes without us noticing.
But one of the major themes throughout all of Scripture—and one that is brought fully into focus in Christmas—is that God is always at work in places we wouldn’t be looking and in ways we wouldn’t pay attention to.
Just think back to some of the key events from Scripture.
The people of Israel? They started with God keeping his promise to an elderly, infertile couple (Abraham and Sarah).
Rescue from famine? God used a betrayed, abandoned, and forgotten younger brother to provide for a whole nation (Joseph).
A king for Israel? God chose the scrawny, youngest son to guide his people (David).
The Savior of the world? God chose an unwed teenage virgin to bear the Son of God and deliver him to the world. Even more, he chose a barn in a backwoods town for the birth of the Messiah.
Looking for God
God has a habit of showing up in places where people aren’t looking and where they’d least expect it. As we move forward into the new year, we need to build into our routines the habit of focusing our eyes, of paying attention, and looking for the ways God is at work. The incarnation of Jesus shows us that God regularly, repeatedly, and powerfully interrupts the humdrum mundanity of our routines. God shows up in our lives in unexpected ways. But if we aren’t paying attention, we won’t be able to see what God is up to. And if we don’t see what God is doing, we won’t be able to join in.
The Psalmist reminds us what it looks like to pay attention to God:
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6).
As we enter new year, let us wait for the Lord, watch for the ways God is at work, and seek ways to join in the work God is doing through Jesus!
Stephen Waers, an alumnus of Point University, is the chief academic and information officer at Point University. He holds a PhD in historical theology from Marquette University. Stephen is married to Katie (a Georgia Tech graduate) and together they have two daughters, Vivian (9) and Ellie (7).
Cardinal photo by Ray Hennessy at Unsplash.com
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