Squirrel

I love to people watch.  I don't know what it is, but I really love to watch how people interact with one another.  You can see every sense of emotion.  It is kind of like watching a silent film.  I was at Starbucks yesterday and sat watching one man talk to himself in the middle of the sidewalk as people walked around him (bluetooth).  I watched 3 teens walking side by side - all with phones attached to their ears.  I saw a few others working on laptops.  It was odd, there was absolutely no interaction.  No one was talking, there wasn't any spontaneous laughter.  There was just pure distraction. 

I am the queen of distractions.  I have ADD - literally - not just jokingly.  If you don't have ADD, I have included a clip from the movie UP where Dug, the dog displays it perfectly.  The brain is always ahead of the mouth.  You have 100 thoughts going at once and it is difficult to focus on one. 


Today's passage is:  Matthew 5:14, 16  "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. 

While at the beach last week I was thinking about lighthouses.  North Carolina is full of them and you can see them from very far at night.  It is a light that is a beacon for the way home.  What I was thinking about was, what if someone lived in that lighthouse but forgot to turn on the light.  What if they got busy and just forgot.  No one would know where to go without their wonderful navigation systems. And how often has your GPS taken you down a road that either doesn't exist or takes you way out of your way?  My husband and I were in Florida earlier this year and the GPS took us to the back of a waste management plant instead of our hotel.  I had to think fast and give the GPS other possible side streets to help us get back on track. 

We are so "busy" but are we?  Or are we just filling our time?  Are we forgetting to turn our light on because we are so engrossed in our own lives that we have forgotten people around us? 
If you have the light of the world, so bright, God doesn't want us to get distracted and forget to turn on the light.  It becomes easy to turn it on whenever it works for us but how will anyone get home if the lights are off?  This passage is so you can see and so others can as well.

What distractions are keeping you from meeting people where they are at?  Where do you struggle to turn on the light?