I don’t believe God just gives you one moment in your whole life, but rather, lots of special moments or opportunities. You know the ones? When it feels as if God has spoken to you and suddenly you have such clarity! Then, you get to decide, what am I going to do with this? Will I say yes? I believe, the bigger issue is whether or not we notice these opportunities. How can we make sure we don’t miss them?
#1 Cultivate a listening, receptive heart
The world we live in is so full of noise! The moment the alarm goes off in the morning, the mad dash to get it all done begins! We get up, we get ready, we check e-mail, try to figure out what has to be done for the day, fly out of the house, get to work, work hard all day, go home, flip on the TV and pull out the iPad to get more work done, check Facebook, respond to texts, the list goes on and on! Is it any wonder we are missing the moments God has for us?! There are days when I’m not sure that I brought a very receptive or listening heart. It’s the world that we live in. We’re bombarded by so many things, people trying to talk, everybody who wants your time, texts, Tweets; all the communication!
To cultivate a receptive and listening heart can be as simple as making time to have a devotional life! It means turning it all off for 10 minutes to sit quietly, read an inspirational devotional, take a moment to pray. And I’m not talking about prayers of petition when we ask God for help, but rather prayers of gratitude! Getting into this daily habit will start to change the way you look at life. You will start to cultivate a receptive heart and a listening spirit. We have to step away from all the craziness and the noise if we want to hear God speak.
#2 Practice knowing the presence of God
I believe God is all around us, working in the world every day, but a lot of times we don’t see it because we are so busy and so overwhelmed. I mean, don’t you ever feel overwhelmed? I don’t know about you but some days I run so hard trying to check off the list and I come to the end of the day further behind than when I started. So many things can leave us feeling overwhelmed, including finances, medical issues and relationships. Being overwhelmed leaves us feeling lonely and isolated and when you’re in that place, it is very difficult to hear God speak to you. Practice being in the presence of God, noticing when He is near, so that you can remember you aren’t doing this alone! I love the old saying, where optimism rules, opportunity never cease. Optimism rules when you and I know we’re not doing it alone, when we feel God’s presence there is optimism and the opportunities for life never cease.
#3 Stand in God’s grace
I think so often we forget we are standing in God’s grace and we get down on ourselves. We live in a lot of regret. It’s easy to look back on your life to see mistakes, poor decisions or failures, but God has a message of grace that says you are forgiven, you are loved and you are still special in God’s eyes. He STILL wants to bless your life and use you to help change this world. You’ve got to remember to stand in God’s grace to know that YOU still have something to do, God still wants to use you. If you and I will remember to stand in God’s grace it will help us to be able to see, we will start to hear God speak to us. The opportunities are there and when you say yes you will discover the power of a single moment.
