I was eating lunch outside on an early autumn day last week. The breeze was gentle, but the air tingled with a hint of cooler days to come. From the side of my patio, I felt a flicker of movement and sensed something coming toward me. In the split second I turned my head to look, the sensation was gone and the tree beside me stood still.
Just the breeze, I thought, as I went back to work on my salad. Then I saw another flash of motion in that same tree. I decided it must be one of the hummingbirds that have been zipping around my house all summer.
I made a big dent in the salad before I saw the movement again. This time I had the sense of something floating from a high branch to a lower one, far too slow to be a hummingbird. A leaf on the gentle breeze? A falling limb? My curiosity got the best of me.
I climbed down off the deck and tried to find the branch in question. This wasn’t easy since the deck is about ten feet off the ground and the little copse is made up of four trees. I calculated the distance like a land surveyor, squinting and lining up my visual path until I had a good estimate. I studied the suspect branch and my eyes landed on a moving, green stick. As I stared, a praying mantis gradually came into focus, like one of those optical illusion picture games.
I marveled at his quick little hands as they flicked at pine needles for tiny insects. I was amazed at his camouflage; he vanished with the slightest twist of my head or blink of my eyes, only to reappear if I stared and concentrated hard enough.
That’s how it is with God sometimes, don’t you think? We sense Him for the briefest moment and then He disappears. We convince ourselves the moment wasn’t real and go back to whatever we were doing. But then it happens again. And this time, we search and stare until we realize He was right there all along.
Let’s keep our eyes open today, friends. God is right in front of us.
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Amen. God is always with us. I pray I don’t miss any moments with Him. He sends special messages through the simplest things in life.
Thanks for reading, Melissa. I love looking back over my day at bedtime and noticing all the ways God was with me in it. Stay well!