I don’t know about you guys, but I am a major night dreamer. I also often wake up in the early hours of the morning and God speaks to me. One of these times as I was making my way through our dark bedroom so as to not wake up Kathy, God spoke to me. I wasn’t expecting what He was about to say, and it still sits soberingly with me to this day. He said, “You’re not present. You’re always thinking about yesterday or tomorrow. When you’re with someone you’re thinking about being with someone else.” Now you have to understand that often God disciplines me but this felt different. It didn’t feel like the tone of His voice was to discipline, but rather that He was deeply grieved. He continued, “Every day I have planned for you to have several encounters, but you don’t have most of them because you’re not present. You’re always somewhere else in your mind.” Wow. My Father wanted to encounter me more, show me more of His love, show me the beauty of His creation, and I had been missing so much of it. He had several encounters planned for me. I started to think through how long this has been going on, and it had been for a very long time. I was so saddened, and grieved just as He was, to think through the countless conversations I’d had with people and I wasn’t even engaging with them because I was so busy thinking of something else. I even came to realize that I had figured out how to fake being a good listener. That’s right, I faked it. If you looked at me you would think I was really listening to you, but my mind was trailing off to other places. How much of life was I missing out on because I simply wasn’t present?