Day Six in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It has been an incredible trip. Beyond what we expected and even what we hoped for. Every day has been a new adventure, and I’ve taken hundreds… literally… of pictures. We have loved every minute. I have at least 10 stories in my head… guess that’s not too bad when you remember I have at least five women living in my head. (Haven’t met them? Read more here.) I had good intentions of writing daily, but we’ve come in late every night and I’ve just been too pooped to produce coherent thoughts worthy of a blog post. I know. I know. That’s never stopped me before, but… anyway, on with the story about how a moose reminded me about looking for God.

We’ve spent the last six days on a moose hunt. We’ve driven countless miles and looked in every “moosey” spot in Jackson Hole. Now before you go looking up “moosey” in Webster’s, you won’t find it. It’s a Kendrick-coined word. We began saying it on our first day here as we scanned the marshy, willowy…translated “moosey” areas… in search of a moose. And, we didn’t want to see just any old moose. We wanted a bull moose with a big rack. We asked all the locals we came in contact with where the best places to spot moose were. Every time we saw cars pulled over on the side of the road, we’d stop, too. We read trail maps, and if they indicated “wildlife” we thought surely that meant moose so off we’d go. We heard moose came out in early morning and late evening hours, so we’ve been up at the crack of dawn and on the trail every day of vacation, and we’ve come in past dark every night.

And then tonight. Score! Take a look.

Yep. A big bull moose. With a great big rack. In a parking lot. With cars and people. Lots of cars and people.

What? WHAT?!!

A big bull moose with a great big rack in the parking lot. At. The. Visitors’. Center. The last place we would have ever thought to look. I swear. You can’t make stuff like this up.

So much for moosey.

And, of course, that big bull moose with the great big rack in the parking lot at the Visitors’ Center got me to thinking.

Sometimes I think I’m on a hunt for God like I was on a hunt for moose. I expect God to be in the places I’ve defined He should be. I’m not looking for God in the ordinary and mundane places. I want Him to show up on my time schedule.  I want Him to fit my picture of God. (Think big bull moose with great big rack.) I sometimes let others define where God should be. Heck, sometimes I listen to and follow others when I should be following God.

Seeing the moose tonight in the parking lot reminded me that I need to stop looking for God and start seeing God and reveling in the truth He is always present.

Anywhere. Everywhere.
Anytime. All the time.
In the ordinary. In the extraordinary.