Jacob said, "Surely the LORD is in this place and I did not know it."
-Genesis 28:16 (NRSV
MY paycheck wasn't where I had left it. I rummaged through the other papers on the table, becoming more frantic by the minute. What if the check was lost? How would I get it replaced? How long would it take? Finally, when I had just about given up hope, I looked down. There was my check right in front of me.
We laugh at stories of people looking for something that is right in front of them: the teacher who searches the classroom for the glasses perched on top of his head, the woman who anxiously searches for the keys she is holding in her hand.
But sometimes I am just as blind in my relationship with God. I ask for God's help and guidance but don't notice the quiet, unobtrusive ways in which God is working in my life. I am learning to give God credit for the "coincidences," the "chance" meetings, the "unexpected" phone calls.
Early Christians developed the practice of each evening prayerfully going back over the day, looking for where God's presence and guidance had been with them. Like them, we can train ourselves to recognize signs of God's presence in the ordinary events of our lives.
