Staring at a leaf

As you may know, we spent last weekend in Niagara Falls, where we spent all day Saturday walking along the river and getting soaked by mist from the waterfalls. The forecast for Saturday predicted the day to be rainy and cold, however, we were greeted by the sunshine and a crisp and refreshing breeze when we walked outside of our bed and breakfast. It was an incredibly beautiful day! We began walking to the main part of town and talked about how wonderful it was not to have to walk in the rain.

When we arrived to the waterfall area, we walked by a family with a few kids and a dad with a giant fancy camera around his neck. The dad was unsuccessfully trying to get one of his daughters' attention so that she could see Niagara Falls. She was probably around 4 years old and was standing with her back to the waterfalls, incredibly focused on a yellow leaf that she'd just found on the ground. You could tell that her dad was trying to get her to pay attention to him, but no matter what he did, she stayed focused on that leaf. He called her name, grabbed her hand, tapped her shoulder, all to no avail...she wanted nothing else but that leaf.

I sort of chuckled at the irony of the situation. Here is this child who is standing in front of one of the most beautiful and awesome sights in the country, and she's facing the exact opposite direction, staring at a common leaf. As we continued walking, I began thinking about how this is a perfect illustration of how we treat God. Some of us are this small child. We have seen how awesome and wonderful that God is and we don't care, so we choose to turn around, pick up a leaf, and stare at it. Or we are just so focused on "a leaf" that we fail to notice God. We don't even know He's there. A leaf can be anything to any one of us. It can be a job, a goal, a relationship, it can be the simple desire to be happy. This leaf is consuming our attention, eating up our time, distracting us from something bigger that we can't even see because we're facing the wrong direction.

Some of us are the dad. We have seen God and we know how incredibly amazing He is. We know that the leaves that we used to think were worth our adoration don't even compare to the magnificence and power of the Almighty God who loves us. We are excited to see Him, we even have big fancy cameras to try to capture all there is to capture. We want to drink Him in and share Him with everyone that we know. We try to shake the leaves from other peoples' fingertips so we can spin them around and introduce them to awesomeness.

One thing that I thought of when looking at Niagara falls was that it seemed very powerful. Never before would I describe a waterfall that I've seen as powerful, but if I had just one word to describe it, that's what it would be. It was also loud and big and forceful. And maybe it's because you can get so close to it, but it seemed dangerous. Nobody was trying to get up on the railing to take a better picture, nobody was running on the wet sidewalk. Nobody had to be told rules about the waterfalls, there was simply an understanding of respect...a healthy fear that kept everyone at a safe distance.

This in a small way is comparable to the respect and awe we should have for God. Fear in this case is not a bad thing, just like the water. And fearing the Lord does not make Him bad, just like the waterfall isn't bad. I love the song "So High" that says (and I'm listening to it right now) "You are indescribable, you are beyond expression. I run out of words for you, I can't think that high".
So I want to be the dad in this scenerio (sorry, I'm aware that I am so cheesy). I don't want to be the 4 year old with my back to the awesomeness of God staring at a leaf. I don't want to be so focused on my own happiness, on my job, or even on my spouse that I don't get to experience all that God is. And this is the awesomeness of God...

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9