Okay, so I don’t know about you, but when I have a super busy day planned, I like to get up early. I want to take my time, make sure I have all my stuff ready, and enjoy some slow moments before the day just totally takes off.

…And then my beautiful plan gets ruined when I forget to set an alarm and wake up fifteen minutes before my day is supposed to start.

Yeah, that was yesterday. Therefore, your blog is a day late. Sorry about that, friends. I ran around the entire face of creation in my little world from 8:30 am to about 11:30 at night. Anyway, it’s over, right? It’s a new day. New mercies. All of my favorite stuff.

As things just get busier and busier, though, I find myself starting to panic a little bit about the time. My son heads to kindergarten next year. I know, I know. Lots of you are sending kids off to college or giving them your car keys. But this is the first step that really starts it all. This is the next twelve years of their lives, most likely even more than that. And as it nears, I find myself searching for the beautiful moments.

I found that they are there. The quiet, maybe not so Instagrammable moments. They’re waiting for us if we would slow down enough to see them.

Earlier this week, the moment jumped out at me. We recently got a new dining room (farmhouse!!) table. It’s beautiful. We’ve waited a long time to get one, and we just love it. And I sat with my kids as they ate their breakfast. Normally, I’m running around cleaning or preparing for the day as they eat. But we all just sat. And it was slow. And Hillsong United sang behind me “This is holy ground. You are holy, You are with me now.” Literally nothing was happening. In her little nightgown with crossed legs, she ate her cereal. I sat.

And I heard God remind me that I don’t get to decide which moments of my life are holy and which ones aren’t. The truth is, if the Spirit of a Holy God lives inside of us, then every moment is holy. Every moment is set apart, consecrated. Nothing is meaningless. Even the most mundane task that you do every day. The messy, the repetitive, the boring.

The trick is simply not missing them. And we miss them by being distracted. Think about it. I’d be willing to guess that your mind runs the most in two places: the shower, and when you’re trying to go to sleep. Good or bad, I know it’s when my mind finally has a few moments to think on its own without being interrupted. And I’m positive it’s because of one thing: my phone doesn’t follow me there.

It’s difficult to notice a holy moment if you are trapped in photos of someone else’s vacation. It’s pretty challenging to notice a set apart moment if you mindlessly scroll through videos and articles that probably don’t even relate to you.

How many times have you wondered to yourself or said out loud, “I just don’t hear/see/feel God…“? The truth is, we get to decide if we allow Him that space or not. The holy, righteous, perfect God of all creation has set you apart to be holy and blameless in His sight. And we get to decide if those truths will permeate our lives or not. By simply how we choose to see them and allow Him in.

And they aren’t always beautiful. The holy moments aren’t just quiet mornings or a powerful worship moment. It’s the struggle of wondering how to help your teenager. It’s driving in traffic to a job that you are remaining faithful to. It’s in the broken surrender to God, when you have nowhere else to turn. The holy moments are in perseverance, in struggle, in the slow and in the busy. Our lives are packed. And I believe God sees the reality of our daily schedules. But are we missing the moments He’s prepared for us? The soverign reminders that He is God, and that He sees you.

We can’t create holy moments, but we can create space for them. We can choose to believe that we are holy because we have been redeemed by a holy God.

You.

You are holy, righteous, and set apart by a loving and gracious God.

When you are changing diapers.

When you are sitting at a desk, surrounded by files and responsibilities.

When you are doing dishes and folding laundry.

When you are struggling to see your business succeed.

When you are helping with homework.

When you choose to love your husband through a bad day.

When you say no to the right things.

When you apologize and ask for forgiveness.

When you see the best in someone.

And in every single moment in between. Don’t limit the fullness of your life by compartmentalizing God’s presence. He is in your struggle and your successes. He is in the quiet and the fast-paced. He is in the waiting. For your own sake, don’t miss it.

 

“As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.”

[1 Peter 1:15]