Complications
I am not the best traveling companion. I have a knack for finding myself in the midst of flight delays. Rerouting and cancelations have a way of following me. I was once escorted off a plane by air marshals because I matched the description of someone else they were looking for (on a flight with 10 people, I flew with my doppelgänger. Seriously, what are the odds?). I was once delayed 4 hours because a perfectly good plane was missing a ‘lift here’ sticker. I also once had a bonding moment with a flight attendant over witnessing a mid air near miss while gazing out my window at 15,000 feet.
I recently traveled to Mozambique with friends, and the trip was no exception to my knack of finding these traveling antics. Our flight from New York to South Africa was delayed 24 hours, because engineering broke the plane and the part they needed to fix it had be flown in. Then, when we landed in South Africa 40 short hours later, three of us had baggage that stayed in America- mine included.
After making it to Mozambique, we stopped to spend a few hours at the beach to recover from our travel delays. As I walked down to the shore of the Indian Ocean, my mind was caught up in the beauty of the waves hitting the sand and rocks. There is a calmness and peacefulness I find at the ocean and as I stood taking in this insurmountable beauty, I thought - This is one of my days and this day is a good one!
As I turned to head back towards the shore, I caught a glimpse of a concrete barrier that separated the beach from the rest of town. It sat just beyond a beachfront home and just behind the waves of the ocean. One word was written on the concrete: COMPLICATION.
It was simply painted without a lot of fanfare. Maybe it was written by a person, communicating the disparity between a high class resort and the poverty that laid just behind the wall. Maybe it was written by a person wrestling through their own inner battles in need of expressing their feelings to someone…to anyone. Maybe it was written by another frustrated traveler from years gone by, who arrived to Mozambique a day late and a few bags short too.
Seeing the word on concrete made me chuckle. We had faced our fair share of complications with our air travel to Mozambique. We were headed into facing the complications of forging relationships with new friends who spoke a different language and lived in a different culture. And unbeknownst to us at the time, we would also soon be facing the reality of sins coming to light that would tear at our souls and feel immeasurably big to our little hearts.
Yet as I looked at the word on the wall, in the midst of the beauty surrounding me, I found rest. Because in the midst of our travel complications, I still saw my Savior, our God, all around. My eyes didn’t stay fixated on the graffiti painted on the wall, but instead turned back to the beauty of the beach, rocks, and ocean surrounding me. The complication was still there, but where I chose to linger was with the immeasurable and insurmountable goodness of God, not with the concrete wall that stood in front of me. He got us to Mozambique safely. He gave me time to enjoy the ocean view with good friends.
That’s what dwelling is. It’s lingering our eyes or attention in an object, place, or emotion. We all dwell in something. If it’s not God, it’s something: It’s a comfort. It’s a circumstance. It’s a relationship. Maybe we dwell in making the perfect home, or posting the perfect Instagram picture. Maybe we dwell in having the perfect family or perfect job. Maybe we dwell in doubting our worth- in believing we are unqualified for the task at hand. Whatever our something else is, it eats up and complicates a piece of our day because when we dwell in it, we by default are giving up dwelling with God.
The good news is we can change. We can press pause on our day and choose to dwell with God. Complications, if they aren’t already present, will arise. Chaos in the midst of our comforts and relationships is a guarantee. The life we live today not perfect and never will be this side of Heaven. But it is still a part of all our days and we can linger with Him while we live our today. We can gaze at His beauty, dwell in His house, and seek Him because His love is bigger than any comfort, circumstance, or relationship. It's abundantly bigger. It’s immeasurably bigger than the complications that sit before us.
Dwelling in today is a truth I find myself forgetting more often than not. I easily get caught up in the perfections of my comforts, the complications of my circumstances, and the successes/failures of my relationships. I forget that God’s beauty is all around me if I would just open my eyes to the possibility that He is present. Right in front of me and right now.
I hope these words are a reminder that beauty in everyday doesn’t just exist, it flourishes. Because the stories of the success of gazing at His beauty are meant to be celebrated, the struggles of seeking Him and His House as we battle through complications are meant to be shared, and the honesty of dwelling with Him in our moments chaos and happiness is real and worth everything.
One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek:
that I may dwell
in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze
on the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him
in his temple.
Psalm 27:4