On October 11, 2017, an IKEA store opened in Indianapolis. I was excited! I had been once before and loved it. I planned ahead for a time to go, and saw that I had two days off work the end of October for Fall Break (I’m a teacher).  Better yet, my kids would be in school since they had a different Fall Break. I love them, but I was thrilled to have those two days to myself. With my birthday being around that time, my very kind husband suggested we birthday shop and eat lunch at IKEA, making a day of it. Lenny hates to shop, so this was quite a sacrifice for him—especially when I zone out and ignore him (kind of like he does to me when he’s fishing).

As soon as we walked through the doors of IKEA I got into my shopping mojo. My shopping mojo is grabbing a cart and putting in whatever leaps out at me. Sounds like impulse shopping I know, but it’s not really.  I’m slow in making decisions, so I’d rather deliberate at the end and remove items from the cart until I narrow down to the favored few. So I began putting things in the cart…a few pillows (much to Lenny’s chagrin) and fake potted plants. It wasn’t until I tried to take a firmly fixed picture off the wall that it occurred to me something wasn’t right. A store worker hurriedly came over to me and politely stated that I was shopping in the showroom. He told me I needed to shop in another part of the store. With great embarrassment, I apologized and glanced at Lenny to see him simultaneously rolling his eyes, shaking his head, and sighing.  

This is the thing: if I had only paused when I first walked in the store to seek the right direction, I would have been saved a lot of trouble and embarrassment. But I had my own agenda and impulsively took off without a thought. I didn’t think to pause and consider.

Spiritually speaking, we need to just pause and remember God. But it’s so easy to go through the motions of our day and not pause to think on Him because we are forgetful and so easily distracted. How often do we launch into our day, our jobs, our tasks, our phones, our decisions, our dreams, our plans, our trials, and our conversations without pausing to remember God? I wonder how different our days, moments, and responses would look if we remembered to pause and spend time with God.

Proverbs 3:6 tells us, “In all your ways acknowledge Him.”  Different translations of this verse phrase it this way: “remember the Lord in everything you do, listen for God’s voice in everything you do, in all your ways submit to Him, in all thy ways think on Him, in all your ways give ear to Him, know Him in all your paths, think about Him in all your ways.”  If you’re like me, “All of your ways” seems a bit daunting.  How do we do this? Is it even possible? We all have our unique paths and ways, but I thought I’d share how I’ve been striving to acknowledge God more and more in my days through talking, trusting, and thanking.

First of all, I’ve simply been trying to talk to God more. I’ve trained myself to talk to him on my two mile walk/jog every morning, while driving alone, while walking the halls at my school, when anxious and bothersome thoughts start to grip me, and when needing help for myself or others.  James 4:2 tells us that, “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” In my talking to God I have been learning to ask more and to trustingly leave those “asks” in His control. I heard Wesley Seminary professor, John Drury, say about prayer, “Be bold. Be specific. Be persistent.” I have been praying with these three things in mind, and the more bold and specific my asks, the more excited I am to see how God will answer. And the more I talk to him about specific requests, the more I see his answers.

Second, I have been learning to trust God more. My natural tendency is to focus on myself and my problems rather than focusing on God. I think it’s too easy to keep our burdens to ourselves.  We can get so used to living with painful feelings like loneliness, fear, guilt, shame—that it never occurs to us to ask for help in dealing with those things. We go through adversity without asking God to teach us through it or learn to trust him through it. However, God tells us take refuge in him and to trust him in all things (Psalm 62:8). So, for example, whenever I start to feel anxiety welling up, I have been training my mind to pause and give whatever is on it to God, telling him I trust him, and asking him to transform me by the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2).

Lastly, I have been pausing and practicing thanksgiving. I saw a quote on social media a few months ago that said, “Be obsessively thankful.” I loved this so much I wrote it down. I want to be this. I want to live this. What if we practiced 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and learned to “give thanks in all things?” What if we remembered to pause and thank God for those things that we so easily take for granted, for the beauty of the earth, for the hardships that we don’t understand but trust God is using, for answers to our prayers, for the people he brings in our lives, for our insufficiencies that keep us depending on him, for his goodness.  What if Thanksgiving was more than just a season, but a way of life?

David, a close companion of God, says it another way in Psalm 16:8, “I have set the Lord always before me.” This is an endeavor that requires persistent effort and determination, coupled with spiritual and mental concentration. Is it worth it? Oh yes.

Amy Luchetti, Reading Teacher at Frances Slocum Elementary School