Right in Front of You

I was watching my cousin’s children playing one morning. They went from playing ball to reading books, to wanting to color. I sat them down with some paper and crayons and sat observing them draw whatever their imagination was telling them to.

The crayons were a large variety of beautiful colors. They lay spread out on the table. One of the children, who we will call Zachary, had an orange crayon that he was coloring with, the other child, who we will call Joseph, had picked up a blue crayon, but when he saw the orange one, he of course wanted that one instead.

Next, I noticed something interesting. Joseph put down his blue crayon and sat there with his paper in front of him. I asked him what he needed and why he stopped coloring, and he then replied that it was “because he was waiting for the orange crayon.”

Zachary was coloring away with his orange crayon and Joseph was left staring and waiting for his turn. All of these beautiful colors surrounded him, but he was focused on just one and because of that, he missed out on enjoying all of the other colors that were sitting right in front of him.

We spend so much time looking towards the future, or waiting around for things that we want, that we end up missing what is right in front of us. Joseph could have been having an amazing time coloring with the many vivid crayons that lay on the table. Instead of having fun and enjoying the moment, he chose to sit back and wait for Zachary’s orange crayon. In the meantime, he was missing out on a lot of fun.

Instead of sitting and waiting for that orange crayon as little Joseph did, use all of the beautiful crayons around you to have fun and find joy all the while waiting for the orange crayon to come along. Don’t let the appeal of one thing make you miss something special, something right before your very eyes.

We can apply this situation to our everyday lives. We so often look ahead for what we want instead of seeing what is right there in front of us. We are missing joy, opportunities, and life unfolding right before us!