My friend Nathan has a completely magical way with children. (Literally…he uses magic in his presentations. He is a missionary to Brazil, by the way, and you should connect with him here and watch a video about his ministry here.  If you’re lucky, he might make you a balloon animal.)

When Nathan begins to talk to a group of little ones, he tells them that they are going to play a game during his talk. Nathan knows that a child’s eyes and ears are connected. If they are not looking at him, they are not hearing what he is saying. He tells them that every time he says the word “eyeballs” they are to connect their eyes to his and say “CLICK!” Let’s practice, okay?

Eyeballs!

Nathan’s attention grabbing game is similar to what God does with us. God knows that grown-ups are basically kids at heart. Sometimes we get distracted and we lose our focus. We need to reconnect with Him to be engaged with His Spirit and to hear Him when He speaks to us. That is why you will read frequently in Scripture God telling people to lift up their eyes. God is also referred to as the lifter of our heads. When we get worn down, tired, and distracted, our eyes follow our thoughts. We start looking at our circumstances and our to-do lists instead of focusing our eyes on the One who is our help.

Earlier today I felt God saying to me, “Donya…eyeballs!” I woke tired and the cloudy day had me looking inward and toward the end of the day instead of the present. When God nudged my heart, I literally looked up from what I was doing and refocused my eyes. Do you know what I saw?

 Cherry blossoms blowing in the wind. Hints of blue sky. A beautiful spring day. 

What a difference from the gray morning I had been trudging through!

God desires to be in constant communication with us. He encourages us to pray without ceasing and to take our troubles to Him. He wants us to look up from our daily tasks and admire His creation. God knows that a deep breath of spring air and a face held up to sunshine can re-calibrate a soul. These are gifts He gives to us every day, but how many times do we notice them?

As we head into the weekend, I encourage you to take time to “click” with God. Take a walk. Open the windows and turn up the music. Sing in the shower. Make a special recipe. With each breath, thank God for His gifts of sight, taste, touch, and beauty. Connect with your Creator and tune in to what He may be trying to say to you.

Eyeballs…click! 

Photo credit: Lotus Carroll / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)