A few days later, as I wrote out my aspirations for the New Year I had some major, "Aha-Moments." In many areas, my life seemed to have lost purpose & meaning... had lost it's luster & I my drive. A lot of things started to gel as I wrote. I had ceased to be deliberate & intentional. Even my time with God had become something of a hastily scrawled sticky note. Though I continued to "watch", I had stopped being "still"...I had stopped listening.
I prayed in earnest for God to help me listen & one word murmured passed... Wondering if it was simply my randomness of thought, I quickly set about looking it up in God's Word.... as I dug deeper & deeper, I knew that He had granted my petition. He also confirmed that being deliberate & intentional need to be an umbrella over all of my goals.
That afternoon, I drove to the intersection in the painting, wondering if I could capture the right angle on the sign. I decided to shoot every one of them to see which was "mine". When He graced the the 2nd with a rainbow I immediately knew which one He had chosen for me. Had I not been "deliberate & intentional", I would have missed the color & that is exactly what had happened in my life! How warm & hilarious God is !!!!!
Ha, how funny, you are talking about deliberate and intentional. Or maybe in other words slow down, stop and pay attention. Don't miss anything especially what God has planed for your life. That is one of my favorite verses. The "Be Still and Know" one. There is so much meaning and so many concepts in so few words. But as I read to the end of your blog you mentioned a rainbow in the picture. I instantly said to myself, huh what rainbow, the picture I saw was of a cross walking signal. One with the familiar red hand held up, meaning to stop and wait impatiently for it to turn green so you can safely cross. So I went back and looked at the picture again. I was surprised, what I had done when I first saw the picture was, focus on what seemed to be the main subject or intended purpose of the picture. That being the cross walk signal. I completely missed the rainbow on the wall. In my minds eye, I had simply dismissed the rainbow as a glare probably the sun either on the camera lens or the wall itself. Not until it was brought to my attention did I stop and go back then intentionally look for the rainbow. Than I saw the colors and the shape and enjoyed the entire picture as it was meant to be enjoyed and noticed the uniqueness of the picture. Only than did I think or ponder on the idea that, several things had to take place and line up just right, the time of day the angle of the camera, the distance from the subject even the height of the camera operator. Than the sun had to be in a certain place in the sky and there had to be a pool of water or a window or a camera lens, something for the reflection to bounce off of to create the beautiful colors and shape that it did. It was than that I realize that this anomaly or message or even maybe just a simple reflection is more of what the picture was about. It is the rainbow, I almost missed, that makes the picture unique or different than just any old picture of a cross walk signal, that at first seemed to be the main focus of the picture and what the photographer was focusing on. But after stopping and going back to deliberately take a better or longer and deeper look at the picture. I now see that the picture was much, much more than what I gathered from it at the first hurried glance I took. So I see it is a good idea to pay more attention and intentionally look for things I might would other wise miss. To deliberately slow down and even stop at times and access where I am and what is going on around me. Than make a more informed decision as to what I need to do next or change in my life. Or it could be something that I need to bring to someone else's attention. So point well taken and hopeful lesson learned. Thank you for posting the picture. Barry
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