Seeing beauty
I was in Augusta GA this weekend to photograph a retirement and do some filming for work. To say I wasn't looking forward to it was an understatement. I wanted my weekend for me. To do what I wanted.
I arrived Saturday afternoon with a few hours to relax before I had to go to the venue for dinner and the retirement program. When I got to my hotel room I opened the door and it was a corner room. One set of windows overlooked the front of the hotel and other side overlooked a beautiful riverwalk. The sun was shining, the air was warm and creation was gorgeous. I didn't come prepared with my Nike running shoes or workout gear but I could not just sit inside and not enjoy the day God created for me.
I needed this time to clear my head. I couldn't change my circumstances but I had to make the most of it. Something good was going to reveal itself.
I worshiped at The Salvation Army Augusta KROC Center. Major Vick gave a beautiful testimony. It touched my heart. She used the first two verses from Romans 12.
So here's what I want you to do. God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Later Major Street brought the message. He spoke from Revelation 3. He said, "God has called us to be authentic."
What does God want from you? He wants you be AUTHENTIC.