By Stacey Pinz
God often uses the best little nuggets to bless us, but if we aren't in tune to them, we often simply pass them by without giving them a second thought.
Fortunately, I happened to be able to experience one of God's blessings as I recently had the opportunity to hear a young woman still in high school who gave a spoken word about being still and knowing that God is in control. Among the important messages she conveyed in her monologue, and one of my big takeaways, was her emphasis on the importance of the "choice of investing time in getting to know the one who created me....to live in his teachings, and not just teach them to others because serving comes out of the overflow of time spent with God and not in substitute for it."
Wow! Truth, right!? How easy it is to fill our time with so many obligations, positive obligations, like serving at church, but sometimes we forget to leave time to stop and fill ourselves with a kind of life-giving-caffeine-filled love that only our Father can provide, and so our serving becomes another "to-do" on our long list of things, and another weekly obligation instead of an overflow of joy resulting from time spent with God. God knew I needed to hear that.
I have been consumed with this Vine and Branches ministry that God has given to me. It's good; it's positive, but it has consumed me at the expense of being still, resting, and stopping to refill with the fuel of my God's word. I started to get behind in my daily devotions, my daily Bible reading, and even my prayers as by the time my head hit the pillow each night at 2:30AM or 3:30AM, I barely had time to close my eyes before I was asleep. I was burning myself out trying to do God's work, but I was forgetting about God while I was doing it. God knew I needed to hear that young woman's spoken message on that day, so He would orchestrate that my son would have a basketball tournament on a Sunday in a city near a church that we normally do not attend. My family visited that church on that Sunday so God could have me hear this message. Message received, God, loud and clear.
That week, I took a break from the ministry God had called me to. I stopped. I fed my soul with God's word. I caught up on my daily reading, my daily devotions, my sleep. I recharged, and this recharge came just in time for our Sunday to serve in Kidzone! You see, without this break, I might have missed God's nugget. . .I was doing my normal Kidzone Leader thing walking around and talking to kids who were sitting alone, trying to engage them and get them to visit with other kids when I saw this little guy in an orange Nike shirt named Noah sitting alone with a dazed half smile staring up at the video screen listening to the upbeat music and watching the dancing on the screen. Like usual, I looked at his nametag, and with a friendly smile, I said, "Hi, Noah, how are you today?" Noah replied with a huge smile that I will never forget, "I'm doing great. I love it here, and I wish my dad would bring me here every single day!" This first grade boy (which I only know because I saw it on his nametag) had just made me, Stacey Pinz, someone who never usually has a lack of words to say around kids, speechless. I saw it. He was content, joy-filled, wonder-struck, in awe, sitting there in the presence of his Father resting, stopping, and soaking it all in. While there was chaos and commotion all around him, he was content having stopped to savor his time in the presence of Jesus.
If I had not taken time that week to listen and recharge, I am almost positive I would have missed this moment with Noah, and I would have viewed it as another interaction with another kid in Kidzone, and it would not have stuck in my brain like it has. God is so good. He gives us exactly what we need when we need it, but we also have to be pressing into him and listening. When we let the commotion and the chaos of life interfere with our rest, our content, joy-filled, wonder-struck awe of the Lord suffers. I never want to forget the faith of that little boy with the orange Nike shirt, and I never want to forget the awe-inspiring Love and joy of Jesus!
