In response to the recent depth
My fellow bloggers have taken a recent turn to posts of religious depth. People have been commenting, response-posting, and thinking a lot. This post is in response to solitarytellurium’s comments on a post by my good friend Robby.
I want to be closer to God, but at the same time, sometimes I just feel like letting go of everything. I want to live, and I’m afraid living isn’t good enough. I want more. I feel incomplete – like there is a vital part of me that isn’t there anymore. I’d really like a connection with God to be what makes me whole again, but I have no idea where to start.
I started to comment, and ended up with a sermon. Sorry for its length, but I couldn’t stop until I was satisfied with my answer. In writing it, I affirmed some of my own beliefs. I hope it at least provokes thought.
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solitarytellurium, for a start, you can find something you most enjoy, be it food, books, music, the beach, and then find a good use for it. For me, it’s music. I find great release in music. During the school year, I help lead out in hymn sing. During the summer, I’ve been writing music, singing in a virtual choir (Eric Whitacre’s amazing!) and going to a church that makes music a big part of the service (even if I don’t like all the songs). I also like the outdoors. I used to bike to work, but now I find even more pleasure walking the 1/2 hour.
If you find something you enjoy, God can use it and use you through it. For instance, you may have thought mentioning food earlier was either just a poor attempt at a joke, or just plain idiocy. It was neither. When I went to Brazil on our choir tour (how’s that for fulfilling all I desire in two weeks?), I could not believe the food! I tried many new fruits (including the delicious mangosteen, which I HIGHLY recommend) and marveled at God’s handiwork.
Praying is just one way to get in touch with God. In fact, a very celebrated author once mentioned that music in a worship service was of more value than anything else. I tend to agree, and I sometimes dream of starting a church service with primarily music one day. That is my best way to talk to God–through song.
If you’re truly seeking God, that is not emptiness of thought. Quite the contrary; it is the beginning to letting God in.
You mention that you sometimes feel like letting go. That’s exactly what you need to do! God’s love is not under your control. You cannot “encourage” His love any more than it is. There is nothing you need to do to gain his love. Sometimes, working for His love, we make it all about us… when all we see is ourselves, we can’t tell that God has been reaching to us the entire time. God’s already done the work for us. All we need to do is accept.
If you just scroll down (or look in the archives just previous to this post), you’ll see that I recently ranted for a good length of time about Comcast. It’s actually a grand example of the relationship between us and God. God is like the distraught customer (I don’t dare claim that I, a distraught customer, am even a slight resemblance of God, but this is a metaphorical allegory of sorts). We are like Comcast. All God wants to do is heap blessings on us. We refuse to send Him the invitation, or even provide a way for Him to contact us. We insist that He isn’t doing enough for us, and that we do want His love, but we continually put up a false front. God keeps saying, “BUT ALL I WANT TO DO IS GIVE YOU LOVE!!!” We then continue to ask for his address, for his social security number, just to make sure he’s for real, and not just some guy out to tie up our lives and communications lines with nonsense. We put Him on hold indefinitely. We play for Him atrocious music.
I could take this metaphor on forever. But the point is, the place to start is ground zero. Just let Him get to you. He gets to me every time I hear a good chord struck in an Eric Whitacre composition. What’ll it be for you?
Thanks Curtis. Everything you said is so obvious, and I can’t believe I never realized this all before. I’ve been worrying about how to reach out to God, and all this time He’s been reaching out to me, and I was too busy stressing over my broken spirituality to let him in.
I think the reason it is so hard for me to pray is because I’m asking God to give me this, or help with with that, and I’m not giving anything back. Praying makes me feel guilty, so I was questioning whether praying is really more religious than ignoring prayer all together.
My logic was that if I didn’t know how to return all Gods favors, then if I just quit asking Him for things, we would be even.Now I know that I was completely wrong. I never knew there were so many ways to be close to God. I don’t have to try so hard to bring God closer to me. He’s already close to me, I just have to live my life in a way that makes my heart open to accept his love.
I used to play the Piano, and my sister and I learned harmony to a few hymns a long time ago. Maybe I can get back to that. And my mom works at the hospital, so I might be able to get a volunteer job. Would that help? I don’t consider myself a bad person, but at the same time, I still don’t quite understand how doing good one way or another will make you closer to God. Care to elaborate a little more?
Thanks again so much, Curtis. You have no idea how much of and eye-opener your post was.
This is a good post…I have some more on the matter as well…I like the we play him atrocious music bit. However, I’d go even further with that metaphor and say that we play him music at times when we’re not even connecting to him at all. Similar to the “hold” music on the phone, I can see God saying, “I’m not even trying to hear this right now…I just want to talk to my child and I want him to listen!” Good stuff.
Exactly! I’m glad my metaphor worked for ya.
I guess it’s somewhat of a blessing that I spent hours on the phone with Comcast. I got this out of it. As much as I hate saying that the ordeal was good, God must have put it on my mind.
On the plus side, now you have patience and a funny story to tell.
I just said a better plus side, that GOD USED IT FOR GOOD. I guess it’s also great that it was funny and taught me patience.
God’s in the great habit of doing that . . .
The awesome thing about the Shepherd is that He actively searches for us, and He finds us, and then all we have to do is let Him pick us up and carry us back where we belong.
I prayed last night – really prayed, tried as hard as I could to actually have meaning behind my words. Iasked Him to forgive me for misunderstanding his love, and told him I was oppening up my heart. I feel better. Now I just have to get the ‘live your life for God’ part down. I’m pretty sure I can handle that. Thanks Guys. And when I say ‘guys’ I mean ‘Robby, Katy, Curtis and Stephenbarrytellem’. You guys are the best 🙂
Now that you’ve discovered this, the devil is gonna make your life miserable for a while. Life acts like a roller coaster: ups and downs. Whether it has a general upward trend or a general downward trend is up to you.
Awesome beans!!! Okay, now I’m gonna have to go and continue with my Comcast metaphor. I have more inspiration now…. Be back with a link in a sec.