MISS ELAINI OUS

Lights out.  Head on the pillow.  Relax.  I was just about at that point where you drift off to dream land when, BUZZZZZZZZ right in my ear.  ::thump:: I whacked my head, sat straight up and turned the light on.  (This is highly unpleasant at late hours of the night.)  I knew that sound immediately.  It was a mosquito.  A large one.

There I was lying in bed with the sheets up to my eyes wondering when the little monster would strike.  I couldn’t sleep thinking that he wanted me for his dinner.  Then I saw him on the ceiling.  That attempt to kill him was unsuccessful.  As was the next one.  Finally I killed the mosquito after about 10 minutes of nervously searching my room.  Even though the light was now off and the mosquito was killed I was still wide awake and thinking.

My sin is like that mosquito.  It wants to suck the life out of me.  It’s small but it leaves a mark.  One mosquito doesn’t sound that bad but if you let it stay it will hurt you.  Your sin may seem small but it is deadly.  I Googled “How many people are killed each year from mosquito bites?”  I was shocked with the answer.  Mosquitos are the deadliest animal.  They are so small yet their bite results in literally hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.  The majority of these deaths are caused by the diseases that mosquitos carry.  My sin is a disease and it can spread.  Thankfully God in his mercy has forever crushed the power of sin and death but are we using that as an excuse to abuse grace?

In the middle of writing this I had to set it aside.  In the meantime I ended up going to sleep and lo and behold the same thing happened again last night!  Yeah sin keeps coming back.  But this time when I heard the mosquito and turned on the light I knew what to do.  I knew how to kill it.  I knew how to kill it faster too.  Once we start actively putting to death the sin we see in our lives, by God’s grace, we get stronger.  Recognizing sin is a gift of grace itself!  The fact that we can see sin at all (that I could hear the mosquito…) means that our senses aren’t being blinded.

“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”    (Romans 6:15-19 ESV)

My hope for us is that we would be aware of the sin that’s poisoning us and put it to death by knowing the victory Christ has already won.  Friends, we get to win this battle!

I was sitting by the river when it came to me in a flash.  It was that moment of rest where I was just soaking everything in.  I wasn’t really doing much except reading when I knew that my word for 2015 was present.  It’s hard to explain but I just knew.  This word can have a few different meanings but I was taking it as the act of being fully where you are.

You know what?  Being present is hard work in this day and age.  I don’t know about you but there is always a lot on my mind.  It’s hard to focus on one thing.  Even as I’m writing this it’s taking everything in me not to think about my to-do list and the craziness of yesterday and and and…  Distractions abound in our lives.  We’ve come to believe that if you’re not multitasking you’re doing it all wrong.  But what if we were never really meant to multitask?  Did you know that the word multitask was originally used in reference to computers/machines?  It wasn’t until around the 1990’s that it became an adjective to describe humans.  Mind blowing right?

Really it should be surprisingly simple, this act of being present, yet I often find it’s not.  Being present usually means doing less because you’re just focusing on what’s at hand.  Being present means fully embracing the moment.  We’re missing out if our brains are in more places at once than our bodies are.  Recently I received an email and there was a phrase that stood out.  “Be where your feet are.”  Simple but profound.

Are we really here?  Are we embracing these moments?  How often is my mind a million miles away even while my body is sitting there staring at someone hearing the words coming out of their mouths but not actually listening? Ouch.  Today my four year old nephew was over and I was physically sitting there watching him eat his lunch but I was totally distracted by “all the other things”.  Thankfully I had a wake up moment and realized I needed to just focus in.  When I did it was so beautiful.

I saw my nephew’s smattering of cute freckles and laughed as he tried to eat a dried mango.  I saw his long lashes and bright clear eyes and I saw that smile of his that melts me.  I was all there.  I was all there when he picked me to be on his team for the game.  I was all there and I hope he felt loved.

So maybe my word for 2015 was present but what I’ve learned is that it’s a life long word.  It’s a lifetime practice this act of being present.  When I am present I get the joy of having the sweet gift it gives of soaking up this time and not having a discombobulated existence.  Friends I hope you keep your head where your body is.