Small.
I often look down when I walk. I do the same when riding trails on my mountain bike or hiking wooded paths. This is not good practice and does little to keep me aware of all around and ahead of me.
My concern paints the world small and keeps my eyes gazing down at the day known. The trouble with living this way lies in much of life peripheral being threatened by my thin awareness.
If I only train myself to see now, tomorrow stays hushed and faded in hopes and dreams that remain foreign in the unseen distance just ahead and around me.
When all we see is 'smalled' to now, our effort, too, slows to the shape of what we see. So if we are cornered by disappointment and let downs, possibility of things better and life bigger seem to belong to others reaching for more.
The future belongs to those able to see beyond now. It is then that life isn't mastered by moments but always vibrant, even through swelling waves tossing unfavorable.
Seeing life further requires recognizing life bigger than now.
In a word, faith.
Now here's where faith gets a bit twisted: faith isn't indestructible belief that blooms from a strong heart. Faith is the humble confession of those broken by life and unresolved by the realization that you cannot possibly do it in your own. So we bow in the smallness of who we are and trust for more; we never stay in the smallness.
God dwells all around and outside of the small. He is forever beyond limitations felt in small moments able to lift you to the broad expanse of all ahead and beyond now.
Otherwise, your eyes are trained to look inwardly to your heart and ambition and effort - small becomes your outlook. That's when life shrinks around the immediacy of now and left to be counted good in easy times and bad in difficulty.
Proverbs 3 gives sound advice that you should paint on the walls of your heart and ring in your confession. Our response to life high and low should be full trust in God, who adequately authors the story of who you are. We fully trust in rejecting self reliance and holding to God's bigger in our lives.
After all, the story belongs to the author, not the character.
(*image credit: ikea.com)