Looking Through the Viewfinder

For those you that do not know, I absolutely LOVE taking pictures of my kids. Capturing their proud and silly moments is one of my favorite hobbies. I am by no means great at it, but just good enough to love looking at their pictures. I always have my camera with me and around my neck at their baseball/softball games, getting pictures of them warming up, hitting the ball, standing in the field. I absolutely love it. I am constantly looking through the viewfinder and zooming in on those precious angels. The other night, it hit me. What am I missing when I am constantly looking through that viewfinder? Am I missing the bigger picture? If I had not been looking through the viewfinder the other night, I would have noticed the pitcher on Maggie’s team crying in the circle. A few weeks ago, I might have missed Matt standing on 1st base waving “Hi” to her coach when the coach was actually trying to wave her on to 2nd base.

Every day, we tend to look at life through a viewfinder. We become focused and zoom in on our tasks, schedules, errands, etc. What about the bigger picture? The other night, if I had remained focused on getting the kids to bed, I would have missed precious time sitting on the couch just talking to Maggie. Other times, I would have missed the sweet moments with Matt, right after she wakes up. I also would miss making Miller laugh instead of being a grump when waking him up in the morning.

So too it is with our prayer life. We often tend to place our viewfinder on one specific prayer request and zoom in on it. We become frustrated while waiting on God to answer this prayer the way WE want. How many of the (what we deem smaller) other answered prayers go unnoticed? We tend to miss the bigger picture.

I challenge you to move out from behind the viewfinder and view life as fully and completely as possible. Even more importantly, I challenge you to move out from that viewfinder and realize that God is answering your prayers. He does not always answer the way we prefer. Begin to look at the bigger picture and notice all of the prayers He does answer and stop zooming in waiting on the answer to that one specific request.