Pay Attention...Pay Very Close Attention

For the past couple of years, these two words have popped up regularly in books, in messages, in blogs, in the Word of God, and, in thought:

Pay attention...

So I am.

I'm paying more attention to God-sightings.

I'm looking for Him in the little and big ways that He reveals His glory in creation around me, in the answers to prayer, in the whispers to my heart directly from His Word to my heart.

He IS present.

Sometimes I'm surprised at where He shows up (for example, I remember being a wee bit shocked at how a rock quarry in the middle of Africa could become such a sacred and holy place...but He was there and I was left in AWE and WONDER...and, isn't this the whole point)!

I shouldn't be taken aback.

He IS omnipresent, after all.

(And...)

Where He is, we will always see the mystery and majesty of God's Great Glory...

Those moments are easy to document.

I can take pictures.

I can wrap some words around what I've experienced.

I can list the way He's moved, responded, answered, delivered.

These things are faith-builders, for sure.

More recently, I've been challenged to not just look outward, but inward.

How is God showing Himself to me in the middle of my messy heart?

Where is He at work in me?

It's as if, now that I've had a little practice at the outward AWE, I'm now being asked to take another step deeper into God's Presence within another realm.

This is a little more challenging.

I can't take pictures (Whew! because if I could, well it gets pretty ugly in there...).

And, while I can wrap some words around what I'm seeing, I don't necessarily want to share them.

Here is how I've been challenged:

"Pay attention to those things that annoy, irritate, and disappoint.  Those things have power to reveal truth about ourselves almost as much as anything. Learn to linger with what provokes... You may just find the Spirit of God moving there..."

See what I mean?

So, I'm sitting with this thought.

It's taken me quite a lengthy season to learn to look outward.

I can only imagine how long of a season it will take to learn this lesson well...yet, as I read the passage below, I think I'm prepared to begin to accept the challenge.