There is a melody I heard through my earbuds—

“Keep me in the moment/

Keep Me in the moment/

I don’t want to miss what You have for me.”

I wonder—-Is that how we live?

Moment by Moment by Moment by Moment,…..not ever missing what God has in store for our day.

I am a keeper of an electronic phone calendar, color-coded to show importance of one event over another.  Maybe you are too.  My husband’s not like me; it’s not that he doesn’t want to know, but it’s just that I think he trusts me to know the details. What would I do if my electronic, color-coded, daily calendar suddenly deleted from my phone?

Would I know the planned details found within this day?

Would I know how to survive, living moment-by-moment?

When we were children, we liked to play, and we played hard, not wanting the days to end, not wanting our playing time to ever be over because we lived, not for tomorrow and not for yesterday’s fun, but we lived in the moment…..enjoying the fun that could be found in the living…..moment by moment by moment by moment.
So much can occur in a moment.  Yes, for sure. 

On this particular day, my dad gave my brother Ron and me a task, an exciting task (or so this nine-year-old thought).  We were Indiana farmers, and dad needed to store his crops, so we had cribs and silos.  
Dad would not allow us to climb up the silo because of its height, but he did allow us up inside the crib because the crib was not seventy feet tall with a million steps to climb,  and the crib was not open to the air like the silo.  No, the crib was encased inside the machinery shed, and so, the crib was “safer”…..or so dad thought.

Yet, there’s these two kids—Ron and his sister Nancy.
Cowboys. 
Adventurers.
Farmers.
Detectives.
Kids, living within the moment, enjoying the fun found within every summer day.

“I want you guys to climb up in the crib and clean it out.  Here. Take this broom” dad said, as he handed me the short-handled broom.  Today, so many years later, I do not remember HOW we climbed to the top of the crib;  I only remember what happened to my younger brother Ron while we were in the crib.
There is a verse in the Bible that records these words:

“Seek the LORD and His strength;
Seek His face continually”  (1 Chronicles 16: 11).

And then (again in God’s Word) another verse in Job:

“Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this,
In whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind”  (Job 12: 9-10).

My brother and I did as our dad instructed us.  We knew not to refuse our dad because we knew:

• Dad would take care of us.
• Dad would provide for us.
• Dad would give us a place to live and keep us secure.
• Dad would spend time with us, helping us enjoy the day-to-day moments of life….even the working moments. 

As an adult (looking back on the time I shared with my earthly dad), I realize the way dad taught me (still teaches me) to walk with my heavenly Father….staying in the moment.

So we climbed to the top of the crib and entered the area where dad wanted us to sweep.  Now there were two of us (Ron and me), and we only had one small, single broom to sweep.  One of us would sweep, and one of us would watch.  We even took turns sweeping, and that worked for awhile.  We knew we were climbing to the top to help dad clean out the remains of last year’s soybeans so there would be sufficient room for this year’s crop.
Now in Indiana as I said earlier, our crib sat above the machinery shed, a building that also had a driveway down the center, a building where dad could unload the wagons of grain, allowing the conveyor to carry up the bushels and bushels of grain.  High inside the crib (in the place where dad instructed us to go) there was a hole in the center of the angled floor, the place where the stored grain could slide out (and free-fall), falling several feet below to the waiting grain wagon positioned below the crib door. That was the place where my brother almost fell to his death.

I was sweeping the soybeans, while trying to balance my small body on the balls of my feet, perched on the slanted sides of the angled floor, crouched, bent at the waist, inside the tight confines of the crib.  I don’t remember what my brother was doing at that moment, while I was sweeping.  Maybe he was peering out the small, dirty window, trying to see what he could see.
No, I don’t remember Ron’s movement inside the crib, but I do remember the exact moment when Ron lost his footing and began to slide down the angled floor, quickly sliding toward the open trap door where the grain free-fell through the air to the grain wagon located below the crib door.
“Ron,” I screamed as I grabbed for his sliding body.  I was nine and that made Ron seven years old almost my same size.  He was small enough to hoist up whenever we climbed and played in the barn, but to a nine-year-old girl, Ron was impossible to stop, especially as gravity pulled his small body toward the open hole (the crib door) located in the center of the slanted grain floor of the crib.
In that moment, I did not know the verse in the Bible, the one that records, “Seek the LORD and His strength;
Seek His face continually”  (1 Chronicles 16: 11); yet in that moment, I knew the TRUTH of God’s amazing strength as I dropped the broom, allowing it to slide through the open crib hole. That action freed my hands so I could grab my brother.  He was sliding so quickly, and I just knew he would die.  So with the small strength found in a nine-year-old, BUT with God’s Amazing Strength, AND with God’s Amazing Hand stopping Ron’s small body from sliding away from my fingertips……God stopped Ron and Kept Ron’s breath secure for another day.

God…..Keep us in the moment….We don’t want to miss what You have for us.

That summer day,  I knew the “strength of God;” I experienced it firsthand.

That summer day, I did not need someone to answer the question:  “Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this,”

That summer day, I knew “In whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind” 

(Job 12: 9-10).

That day,…….I saw God save my brother Ron’s life.

****By the way…..My brother is now a grown man, one who lives a couple of miles away, one who is very much still alive, after having survived this near-death encounter, and one that would live to experience other close calls with death….but that’s a story for another day.

God….Keep us in the moment.

Keep us focused on this one single day.
Keep us focused on You.
Keep us aware of Your power, of Your calendar, and of Your plans for us…….found within this one, solitary day.
Because…..God….We don’t want to miss what You have in store for us.