Of Trains and God

When I was in third grade we got a new girl in my class whose family had just fled Cuba. Her English was fair, but still rough. One day just after school started, a train passed. Not a big deal to most people--we see trains all the time. But to this little girl it was huge! She'd seen few if any in her life, so she leaped from her desk, ran to the window, and shouted, "The choo-choo! The choo-choo!" Of course 30 other third graders burst into laughter.
Here's the thing: to the rest of us, that train--a miracle of engineering, a monster of a machine--was just background noise. To her it was still a miracle--a monster--a symbol of freedom to travel from the pines of North Carolina, over the treed Appalachians, across grassy plains, over the snowy Rockies to the redwoods of California. It was still fresh and new to her.
That's how our Christian life is. Over a period of time, things get old and become background noise. Bible reading, prayer, the leading of the Spirit--we start to take it for granted. When we catch ourselves doing this, it's important for us to take the time to go back, to make ourselves appreciate the little things that aren't, after all, so little.