Getting to God

When I was a kid I played the violin in orchestra. For seven years. Some of my friends in the orchestra were very talented with their instruments, and a couple are still playing music to this day in community orchestras and teaching. I was never very good at it, although, I loved the music we produced as a collective body. It moved me and I remember some of the pieces we played and the way they made me feel.

Playing an instrument though never held that spark of interest for me and when I graduated high school the flame flickered and I never touched my violin again. I still have my violin and when the subject comes up I can say, “I used to play the violin”. That and when I’m moving are generally the only times that I think about the violin and it’s part of my history. For seven years, I spent an hour of my school day plus practice time at home playing that violin, and yet I only think of it maybe seven times a year, at best. It has no relevance on my everyday life as an adult.

Faith is like that for many of us too. We went to Sunday school and church when we were children. Maybe only on holidays or when we were at our grandparents’ houses for vacations, never the less, it’s a part of our history that we can claim when convenient for a conversation or fondly reminisce on how it touched our lives at a special point in time. However, it has no relevance in our everyday lives. It sits tucked away in a box in the closet or on a shelf and is simply a part of our history that we only tap into a handful of times a year.

Deep down we believe we should be “religious” but since we aren’t, we just leave it there, our Christian heritage, beliefs and faith in a box up on a shelf. There are so many obstacles in our way that stand between where we currently are in our worldly form and format to where we God is calling us to be that it’s way easier to just leave it there. We wouldn’t even know where to begin if we acknowledged our need for faith in our lives.

Getting to God is a battlefield of the mind. It’s exactly what the devil doesn’t want to see happening and so it seems there are a thousand reasons not to get the box down off the shelf and take a look at it. If we absorb God back into our lives then we’ll become a religious fanatic or nutcase and none of us want that. If we go God’s way, we won’t get our own way and we have spent our entire lives building up to this point in our careers or family life and don’t want the trajectory to change. It’s too hard to be Christian, because failure is inevitable, and none of us like to fail. I won’t be able to do the “sinful” things I enjoy doing now if listen to God. God has allowed me to be hurt and I can’t trust him.

If only we could see how loving and kind our God is we would take him out of the box. He is the source of all good and joyful thing in our lives. He loves us more than any human being on the planet could and provides more stability and support than we could ever dream. He weeps with us when we’re hurt, and has the best plans in the world for our lives, and wants to show us all that he has in store for us.

Have you dusted off that box recently? I believe if you take a few moments to take it down off the shelf in your closet that you will be blessed beyond comprehension, that the very act of doing so is enough to heal a broken heart, provide sustenance of all of your needs, and will shore you up for all future endeavors.