We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren't capable of remembering how we got here.
...stunningly true, no?
When you are born, you wake slowly to everything. Your brain doesn't stop growing until you turn twenty-six, so from birth to twenty-six, God is slowly turning the light on, and you're groggy and pointing at things saying circle and blue and car and then sex and job and health care. The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given -- it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral.
We are awakening to God, as we live, if we are willing.
I've wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don't want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgement. We don't want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn't remarkable, then we don't have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims rather than grateful participants.
-- Donald Miller, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years
Gratitude goes a lot farther than the other reaction: busyness.
...by the way, I'm thoroughly enjoying this Donald Miller book.
