A few summers ago, my friend and I found ourselves, for the second time in less than a month, racing to make it to a fireworks display. We could see it in the distance, partially hidden behind some buildings, too far to see clearly or admire. My friend turned and said off-handedly, "It seems like we're always chasing after fireworks."

This statement seemed to encapsulate my life so much at the time that I wrote it across the front page of my journal. To chase after the fireworks is to seek the showy parts of life, to look forward to the next big thing. There is nothing inherently wrong with looking forward to a vacation or big concert, but I can spend my whole life in countdown mode until the next fireworks display and forget to live it in the meantime.

To chase the fireworks is to place our hopes and dreams in the bangs, to live with one foot out of the monotonous everyday existence. Is this the Christian life? Did God put me here so I could escape the mundane, or did He put me here to thrive in the day-to-day? I think He calls us to live the life between the splashes of colour. I think He wants us to jump in with both feet and to take His presence into the monotony. I think He calls us to be involved and to rejoice so much in our everyday lives that we even miss a fireworks display or two. Mostly though, I think He wants our eyes looking up, not at the sky, but at the One who made the sky, the fireworks, and everything else.

John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I come that they may have life, and have it to the full.