Exhilarating
It seems that every day is such an exhilarating force right now. You get up in the morning and it is 26 degrees. That’s enough to get your blood pumping. I love it. It is cold and when I walk out of the house it is like being shot with a water pistol filled with ice water on a hot summer day. The air is so crisp it feels like you could grab a chunk of it and break it in half. Your skin crawls inside your clothes as if it were trying to hide from something. Wow! What a feeling!
On top of all of that, it is almost Christmas. Everyone is getting excited, running from one shop to another trying to find that just right gift for someone they love. Christmas music fills the airways from the radio. Ole Saint Nick is at his best once again. Christmas is in the air. Thanksgiving Day is past and gone and everyone is looking for something else. It almost makes you feel like you are on the top of the world. There is not a thought of the long hot summers, those “dog days” that linger ever so long with their misery of heat and drought. This is fresh and invigorating. It makes your blood pump, as it seems, 100 miles per hour.
There is something about this time of year that usually excites people. Yeah, we fuss about the cold, but hey, it is different from what we usually have in Louisiana. Those of us who live here have endured the 85 degree Christmas days in the past. The true story is not over yet. There is still enough time for it to heat back up and make Christmas like the Fourth of July… but we are hopeful.
Then there are the winds. Every year we experience them. Gusty and strong, they blow in the cold air around the first of December, bring their exhilarating, and sometimes, blistering breath upon us. It is so different from what we have most of our lives here… and we love it. (At least some of us do.)
There is just something about this time of the year that changes us. It must be the difference we feel on our skin and the sounds we hear in our ears. It must have something to do with knowing what we will be eating soon and the fact that we will be together with family and friends. There is something different and somehow, someway, we love it.
Have we ever considered that God is like that? God, not church. Most often church is the same ol’, same ol’. But with God, every day is a fresh new day. He is not predictable. You cannot get up in the morning and know what He is about to do. Every day there is a new portrait painted in the sky. Every day the wind blows from whatever direction He chooses. Every day He puts things in our path which are different. God is not dull… He is exciting. No, He is exhilarating!
We get so run down by the same old thing. Life gets a little boring actually, but with God, all of that can change. Every day there are new challenges. You open the Bible and pour yourself into it and something new and exciting emerges. It doesn’t matter how many times you have read it, something new pops out and excites the senses just like the cold air on our skin. God is fresh and exciting and what he does in our lives every day is never ordinary. He wants us to live life and live it to the fullest, and, He does everything under heaven to make it happen. There is never a day that He is not concerned with us. There is never a time when He leaves us on our own. He is with us and constantly making ways to keep life interesting and fruitful. The only problem is that we are sometimes so blind that we do not see Him in His glory. But, seen or not, He is there.
Christmas and cold weather will come and go, but God will be the same. Every day we should open our eyes and look for the new plot, the new path, the new road God has set before us. We should praise Him beyond limits for what He is doing with us and among us. We should have our eyes open to see what He is doing in the lives of those we love and care for. Recognize Him. See His work. Lift Him up in His Glory with praise and adoration. And, in doing this, we will get our eyes opened even further.
Instead of walking outside and complaining about how cold it is, perhaps we should just greet God with a smile and thank him for making our lives different every day. Perhaps we should comment to Him on His magnificent power displayed in the changes that are so obvious to us. I think He might just be proud of us if we do that.
Hey, who knows, if we do this at his doorstep in the mornings, it might just catch on and go to church with us some Sunday. God is exhilarating and His people need to feel His presence.