capturing the moment

May 4, 2003

last sunday was a joint anniversary celebration at rhcbc. musically, the joint worship was pretty hero! i'm always so impressed with the giftedness in music that so many people have at the church. it blows me away again and again. which reminds me, i need to talk to joyce to get hooked up with the tape of spencer singing it up from the easter musical. it was so very hero! but that's besides the point. since it was a joint worship, there was a baptismal that happened during the latter part of the service. i was watching as TONS of people took photos of all the people getting baptized. i don't think i've ever seen so many people bust out their cameras and take pictures of the exact same thing.

so i started thinking about that. what makes people take photos of something? it's a pretty simple reason. you want to capture the moment. you want to capture the essence of whatever is happening at a particular time, and frame that moment in a still photograph. sure, a photograph can't encapsulate all the emotions and thoughts in a particular point of time, but it can certainly help serve as a reminder for that time. reminders like that jog your memory, and help us to recall those feelings, those thoughts we once had. pictures are worth a thousand words. if you want to remember something, taking a photo of it is VERY helpful :)

in our Christian lives, how much more important is it to record or capture the moment, when God intervenes and does something incredible, something wonderful, something only God can do? do we stop, and take a moment to record what happens? or do we let that moment fade away like a fleeting thought? if we really cherish all that God does in our lives, i think it's important for us to capture the moment. maybe that's taking a photo of a setting, or maybe it's writing that down in a journal. by doing so, we can recall how God's been leading us, how God's been molding and shaping us, how God's been answering our prayers, and the list continues. we can even see the character of God by seeing how He's moved in our lives over the past weeks, months, years.

near the end of the book of joshua (chapter 22), the reubenites, the gadites, and the half-tribe of manasseh built an altar by the jordan river. they did it to serve as a witness between their tribes and the israelites and also to future generations to come - it was to proclaim that they would worship the Lord, with burnt sacrifices and offerings. i think we could learn from their example. it's not to say that we need to create altars, but we need to record or mark down what's happened in our lives, like road markings on a highway. we're running a race, and sometimes we need these types of landmarks to remind us that we're on the right track, and there we're running the right race. recording what God has done in our lives does two things:

1) it makes sure WE don't forget what God has been doing in our lives
2) it allows us to proclaim to others what God has been doing in our lives

so what are you waiting for? go out and capture those special moments :) "I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us--" (isaiah 63:7 [NIV])

Posted by Leo Chan at May 4, 2003 10:53 PM