Hi Friends,
As I drove home from the office this evening I caught myself in the middle of a thought that I realized has been following me around for a while and for some reason as I was stuck on the ramp to get onto the traffic-filled highway, it became so apparent to me that this thought isn’t entirely true. This thought is a simple thought. A thought you may have thought from time to time as well and I hope to conquer this thought along with you. I caught my mind thinking something along the lines of:
“God is present in stillness. So I need to work harder to be still, so that He can be more present.”
Guys, the problem with this statement is that He is not ONLY present in the still and the calm. He’s with us in the ‘busy’ too. He’s with us in the calm and the still, just as equally as He’s with us in the crazy, messy and busy. He’s writing His story through the stillness, calmness, and the successes just as equally as He’s writing His story in the craziness, the busyness and the failures. There certainly are times when we need to be still. However, there are also other times that we need to accept the grace He’s already poured over us and realize that He’s still writing His story even when things are busy and crazy.
Yesterday evening, I hurriedly gathered my bags and books and headed to my car to go home for the night. As I hastily whirled around the parking garage I exited onto the street to find myself as the first car in a lane headed toward a red light. Out of the left corner of my eye I saw an awesome old classic convertible with a man coasting it slowly toward the intersection. It was clear he was having car troubles and was coasting out the last bit of movement to which he may not have been able to make it across. Out of the right corner of my eye was a man wearing a backpack, clearly leaving his office just like me, and rapidly walking up to the intersection to cross the street. Just as the driver coasted into the intersection, the man who was crossing the intersection from the opposite direction, without hesitation, jogged up to the back of the car and gave the man a running start to coast to the side of the street to park. I’m not talking a simple push with one hand, I’m talking the man was almost horizontal with both hands pushing this car so hard. After the back-pack man gave his final push, he gave a quick wave to the driver, swiftly turned on his heel and continued on his merry way.
This all happened in a matter of 15-30 seconds. No communication. No heads-up. No cell-phone calls. No hello’s, goodbyes or thank you’s. Just a simple and instantaneous reaction of pure generosity and kindness. I don’t know anything about this back-pack man and I certainly don’t know if he knows Jesus. But I have to say, he taught me a whole lot about Jesus in that busy moment. And whether Jesus was a present in this man’s mind or not, it certainly made Him present in mine. That’s just one simple example of how He was present in my busyness.
Leave a comment with a story of how He has been present in your ‘busy’! I would love to hear!
All my best,
Haley
haley ottmann 