As you await that big thing in your life to happen, are you missing the million little priceless moments happening now? Have you become generally unimpressed with the sheer miracle of your life, with glazed over eyes, a distracted mind, and a disconnected spirit?

The truth is, most of us have.

We don’t mean to, it just happens. We wait for big vacations to wake us up with an impressive show, then we return to our ordinary, unimpressed state of living, awaiting the next big thing to eventually come along. But honey, if vacation is 1 week out of the year, what about the other 51? The weekend is only 29% of your life, the overwhelming majority of sunrises are on work and school days with early alarms, tasks you don’t want to do, and the same dang messes over and over again.

Oh, Father, wake us up … we don’t want to waste this life and miss our million little moments in the process. We don’t want to live for the weekend and dread the rest. We don’t want to be unimpressed with your works all around us, awaiting something bigger and grander.

Over the weekend, I watched one of my favorite movies, “50 First Dates.” I mean seriously, doesn’t every girl love this movie? I was especially interested since it was filmed on Oahu where I will call home for the next month. You likely know the story, Lucy, played by Drew Berrymore suffered a brain injury which causes her to lose every memory of the day just lived when she goes to sleep. She wakes up every morning believing it is Sunday, October 13th of the same year, and life is exactly as it was before her accident. Adam Sandler plays Henry, a goofy guy who tries to get Lucy to fall in love with him for the first time all over again every day. Watching it this time, the final 2 minutes of the movie just took my breath away and I saw something I had never really seen before.

Lucy wakes up, as usual, not remembering a single day since her accident, although over 5 years have passed. She watches a video detailing the unfolding events she would not remember. And every single thing about her world is a wonder land. She is amazed by every detail. It’s all new. It’s all beautiful. It’s all a blessing. Henry greets her on the deck of their sail boat, and he says, “Would you like to meet your daughter?”

And in this beautiful moment, Lucy looks at her little girl, as if for the very first time, and hugs her so tight. She’s overwhelmed with gratitude for the reality of her life. She’s not unimpressed. She’s not bored. She’s not dreading another ordinary day. Her eyes are wide open in wonder and awe, and she’s fully ALIVE.

And this is what God wishes for us. For us to be fully alive to the wonder of our lives. For us to be overwhelmingly impressed instead of overwhelmingly stressed. For us to keep our blessings in their rightful place as blessings and not allow them to fall in the gutters of burden.

But dang, Sis, are you in the gutter? God wants to help you get out!

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6: 11-13 MSG “I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively.”

You and I are blessed with the memory of the days that brought us to today, so we wake up aware of where we are, what we have, and what is happening. Or so we think ….

Actually, I think we are so numb to the rhythm of life, a Monday that always follows the weekend, Spring eventually always following the Winter, eyes that always open and see, lungs that breathe without a second thought, lights that come on with the flip of a switch, cars that start the very first time, and continual messes and stresses always creating something to worry about. And here we are so dang numb, turning our blessings into burdens, and miracles into unimpressive afterthoughts, and we don’t remember at all!

We don’t remember who we really are. We don’t remember all God has miraculously brought us through to get us to here. We don’t remember all we have in this very moment. We don’t remember how wildly rich and ridiculously blessed we really are. We’ve once again forgotten all that is good, all that is right, all that is happening that we once thought would never happen, all that has come together in the past, and all that is here to bless our stinkin’ socks off today, and we’re living this great big, full life that Jesus died to give us, in a small way.

We’re fenced into routines that are sucking the life out of us; stuck in habits that are stealing precious moments we can never get back, and we wonder why we feel so empty inside. Paul says, “the smallness you feel comes from within you. Your life isn’t small, but you’re living it in a small way. It’s time to open up your life!”

How do you open up your life?

You start by opening up your eyes. God says in Isaiah 43:19, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” It’s not IF God is doing new things in your life, because honey, he is and they are magnificent. it’s a matter of IF you are seeing it. Will you SEE what he has done for you today?

Just like Lucy in “50 First Dates” opens her eyes to the reality of her life and she gasps in awe, and studies the face of her daughter like the very first time, yet she had seen it over a thousand times. We look at our ordinary life like we’ve never seen it before, and we see that it’s actually totally extraordinary! Oh what if we could SEE all that God is doing and perceive it. Wouldn’t life look and feel different?

And I know I’ve said this countless times, and I’m going to say it again for the girls in the back … you can’t afford to wish away these days assuming you will live bigger on the other side of whatever mountain you’re facing. You won’t. There will always be a mountain. There will always be a “next”. But you won’t always have “now”. In fact, you will never have “now” again.

Oh, how your heart would break if you were to play little with your own life and waste the blessing of your “now”, when one day you no longer have that luxury. Oh, how you would regret mindlessly going through the motions in one of these million little moments that is priceless and fleeting, and never, ever going to happen again, only to realize you don’t get it back.

How can we open up our eyes and our lives and live bigger, more intentionally, more aware, and more in awe of all our Creator has given us? Let’s pray about that and practice it today.

May you be totally swept away by a million little moments as they unfold right in the middle of your ordinary day.

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