Baby Illustrations

Last night, Elijah woke up around 4:00am. I was awake, as sometimes happens. And, as he sometimes does, he began to play with a mirror that has buttons and a spinny thing on it. When he presses a button or the spinny thing a song plays for about 15 seconds. Anyway, he played with that for about 30 minutes, and then cried out for mommy to come and feed him. And Carrie, the dutiful wife and mother got up and nursed him.

As I laid there watching the monitor lights rise and fall, and hearing the noise he was making, I was struck by a couple of observations about humanity’s relationship with God, both of which are related to practicing the presence of God.

First, I think that we often approach our relationship with God like I approached Elijah’s playing. I sort of paid attention, but I was watching and listening from afar. I could have gone in and watched him play. I could have gone in and played with him. But I didn’t. Why? Because I was lazy, tired, and hopeful that he would fall back asleep so we could all get rest. And I got to wondering, how often do we treat our relationship with God in the same way? We know he is there and interacting in the world, but we prefer to keep him at a distance (for laziness or whatever other reason). God desires our presence, interacting with Him and delighting in Him (as he also delights in us).

The second observation switches places between God and humanity. As Elijah woke up, I am sure he was aware that we were there somewhere. But he was preoccupied with playing. And as long as he was enjoying himself, he had little concern for us. He didn’t call out for us to come and play. But the second he realized that he was hungry, he started crying out and calling for mommy to come and remedy the situation. And it hit me, that this is a metaphor for how I/we often treat God. When things are going well and we are enjoying life, we tend to leave God out of the picture. Then when things get rough or we have a need/desire for something, we hit God up to come and join us. But God wants to be involved in all of our life—the highs and lows, the joy and pain, the frivolous and the serious. When we relegate God simply to the provider of needs we diminish the divine relationship that should flourish right along with our lives.