A Word About, … Noticing
A few years ago, Michael Ashcraft wrote a very engaging book, titled “My One Word.” In that book, Ashcraft challenged readers to choose one word that represented what they might most hope God would change in them — and focus on it for an entire year.
After that book came out, I heard lots of people talking about their one word; some idea they focused on for a year, or maybe for a particular season in life they were experiencing. There are great benefits to that kind of attention and focus. Words are placeholders for ideas. Choosing one word is like choosing a tool we can use; a tool for reminding ourselves of what we’d like to see God change in us.
I’m probably not like other people who choose one word for this year, and another word for next year. I guess you could say I may be vocabulary-challenged in that sense, because I’ve revisited one particular word, over and over as my one word. It is the word … Notice.
I chose that word because, well, again, words are placeholders for ideas. And I have an idea that I need to pay more attention to the idea of noticing. I’m pretty sure I’m not noticing some things I should be noticing. For example, I don’t think I notice how much I talk, and how little I listen. I don’t take stock at the end of each day, and notice important encounters that have occurred between me and people I met along the mile-markers of my everydayness. I don’t give enough notice to occasions I’ve had to make a difference in the life of someone else that slipped right on by me.
I’m sure there are opportunities aplenty in every single day.
I just don’t notice them.
I all too often don’t notice my mind wandering off into corners, either;
Places my feeble brain has no business visiting. Entire rooms in my mind where critical thoughts, or judgements about people I love, opinions about people I don’t even know can materialize, take root, grow. I don’t pay enough attention to that kind of thinking. I don’t even notice it. I’m oblivious. I’m ignorant, you might say; ignorant in so many ways, really.
And the root of the word ‘ignorant’ is ‘ignore.’
When I’m ignorant about what’s in front of me, what I’m not noticing? I’m unaware of a much larger truth; throughout any given year, there are thousands of moments. Opportunities God sets in front of me. As I ponder that placeholder called. ‘notice’ in my life, my challenge isn’t about noticing what I’d like to see God change for an entire year; it’s about being aware of what God is changing in my life … one day at a time. It’s about cultivating an awareness of His presence that is woven into every single day..”
“Now, dear friends, do not let this one thing escape your notice, that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day.” (2Pet. 3:8)
