You Are Always On My Mind

Do you remember that feeling when you first met your sweetheart and you couldn’t get him or her out of your mind? That’s all I thought about – morning, noon and night – that cute, black haired, brown eyed boy stole my heart AND my mind!

This year I found that the principal thing is the simplest thing — noticing, purposing to be aware of God everywhere, recognizing the beauty in His creation, in the talents and abilities of His kids, savoring the everyday realities of His grace that are so abundant. Willie Nelson recorded the song, “You Are Always On My Mind”, and that has been my love song to God this year. In being “tuned in” to Him and being grateful for the simple yet obvious “God” encounters in my day, He has been on my mind…a LOT!

I sincerely want to continue that awareness of Him and having Him on my mind. “Him I will keep in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon Me.” Isaiah 26:3. But, I also know the struggle it is to stay “in the moment”. It’s just so easy to be distracted from the very things He wants to show me.

And that’s what Christmas has been about — finding Him in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the interruptions and distractions. No question, He is everywhere, but the simplest, purest, most humble and less grandiose place we’ll find Him, is still — in the manger. Wouldn’t it make sense that we, too, will find him in some of the least expected places of our life? Perhaps in the homeless man on the street corner, a newborn baby, the hug from a friend, the “My pleasure” from the Chick-Fil-A cashier, in the “answered prayer” story of a friend, or simply, the cross hanging from someone’s neck?

This is still His Christmas. Remember the chaotic, stinky, messiness of Jesus’ birthplace? That’s where we’ll find Him in our world too. We’d love to be distraction-less and have ongoing sweet, encounters with Him….but, it just doesn’t matter. He meets us where we are — in our busyness AND in our stillness. He is there. God is always there waiting for us. When we’re “practicing His presence” we’ll find Him embracing us, giving us aha moments, seeing Him everywhere and in everything.

And if going to the stable and the manger in our minds is too much of a stretch…..after all, it really is quite stinky and messy there…..then we can go to the foot of the cross where He paid the ultimate price for you and me. We were on His mind from the manger to the cross. We are ALWAYS on His mind. Shouldn’t He ALWAYS be on our mind?