1531) Someone recently showed me a video where a bunch of people are passing basketballs around. Half of them wore black shirts and the other half wore white one. The video instructs you to count how many times the people wearing white pass the ball. If you do it successfully, you’ll count 15 passes BUT, if you concentrate on counting, you’ll miss something else that happens in the video many miss, including myself. There is a person dressed up like a gorilla (wearing black) that shows up in the middle of this video. If you go back and watch the it again. You see it clearly.

Watching this video made me realize that we can become so consumed with focusing on one thing, we often overlook other things happening around us. I thought of this when reading Isaiah 35.

Here we read of all the things God is going to do for his children. He will make the wilderness rejoice (vs. 1). The deserts will become green like the mountains (vs. 2). He will strengthen tired hands (vs. 3). He will strengthen fearful hearts (vs. 4). He will open the eyes of the blind (vs. 5). He will make the lame leap like a deer (vs. 6). He will make parched ground like a pool (vs. 7). Sorrow and mourning will disappear (vs. 10).

Why did God give Isaiah this list? I think it may be because it’s easy to focus on the bad, difficult, and hurtful things of this life and miss what God gives us amid all of it. That is hope. Hope that God will keep his word as we walk through each step of our lives.

Why don’t we watch for the promises God gives in the middle of all the difficulties in life? We might be surprised to find it has been there all along; we just didn’t notice it.