A warm breeze touched my cheek the other day and took me back to sunny childhood memories of tent camping in the sand dunes at Key Box Camp near Ocean City, Maryland. Our days were spent splashing in the surf, collecting shells, digging for clams. At sundown, our family would dry off, shake the sand off our thongs, pile into Dad’s old truck, and head to the Dairy Queen at Dewey Beach, where we’d sit on the tailgate of the truck and lick our ice cream cones and watch the sun set over the inlet. If it wasn’t too late, we’d drive across the state line to Delaware to enjoy a nighttime stroll along the boardwalk at Rehoboth. My sisters and I would sit on a bench and eat saltwater taffy while watching people go by.
That was the best part. Watching all the people stroll by. Kids with cotton candy. Lovers ambling along arm-in-arm. Older ladies in flowered dresses and white sandals. People-watching was the neatest part.
I still enjoy looking at people, thinking about where they live, wondering where they work and if they’re happy. Studying people, for me, is a habit.
Wouldn’t it be great if we were as conscious about studying God as we are about people? Watching Him, wondering about Him, looking closely at what makes Him who He is, and just...I don’t know...enjoying Him.
Charles Spurgeon said, “To contemplate God is a subject so vast, that our thoughts are lost in His immensity, so deep that our pride is drowned in His infinity...No subject of study will tend to humble the mind more than thoughts of God. But while contemplating God humbles the mind, it also expands the mind. Nothing will so enlarge your intellect or magnify your entire soul than a devout, earnest investigation of God.”
These are good days to contemplate the goodness of God...thinking about Him while you’re at the kitchen table with an open Bible... thinking about Him while sitting and enjoying the sunset in your backyard... or – as Scripture says – thinking about Him in the evenings, or maybe at night. Psalm 63:6 says, “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.” Even Psalm 4:4 suggests, “When you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.”
No matter where you choose to God-watch today... whether in the morning, the twilight, or late into the evening... pick a time, any time without noise or distractions and let your thoughts become lost in Him.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends