I think that the way that we do church today makes it harder for us to understand how integrated God wants to be with every part of our lives.
Lately I’ve been thinking about what relationship with God really means. How are we to interact with him? When are we to talk to him and how are we to do it? How does my life here on earth interface with a supernatural being that I can’t see?
The music is rock, no two ways about it, but while many rock artists exchange melody for dissonance and abstract chords, the songs on Full Attention use some outstanding melodic hooks that reinforce the personal and often reverent lyrics.
Every once in a while, someone manages to produce something that gives me a small glimpse of “How Great Thou Art” and this CD is one of the best so far.
I’m not sure, but I’m beginning to think that there’s a lot of people like me that suffer from a fear of being selfish. So much so that we can’t really experience the love of God because we fear that it’s wrong to experience something so intensely focused on us. I realized this today at work.
I was just sitting there listening to "More Than A Friend" off of my favorite album right now by Jeremy Riddle. The words and the melody of the song were hitting me deep, right there at my job. At that moment I felt so validated, so complete. But my only thought was "I have to find a way to show other people that this is possible." As I followed that train of thought, I found myself getting frustrated because I realized how futile it is to explain something like that to someone who isn’t looking for it.
Suddenly I felt a prompting from the Holy Spirit inside me. "Let this be just for you."
From the time I started learning guitar, I thought I wanted to live the life of a professional musician. I realize now that what I wanted more than that was the validation and affirmation of being famous and loved by all. To be considered special by my fans, to be thought of as "one of the best". I spent countless hours practicing guitar because I had a point to prove. I was going to be the best anyone had ever seen. Funny even as I write this I remember a time when it wasn’t just about music.
After 30 years of prodding by first my mother, then college roomates, and more recently my wife, I have finally discovered a reason to convert from a slob to a neat-freak. I have never been someone who could keep from piling up stacks of clothes, books, magazines and other random crap around my office, bedroom, or let’s be honest, anywhere that I spend more than an hour a day. I seemed to have a fairly high tolerance for disorder and messiness, even though it drove me crazy to have
things messy and out of order. Once in a while, if my tolerance was running low, and I had some free time, I would clean everything. I couldn’t just clean a little, I had to do every single thing.
After being married for 4 years, I had pretty much made up my mind that Lori was just a neater person than I was, and again, my tolerance for dirty dishes, and piled up laundry was higher than hers. My main reason for cleaning was simply to keep her happy, because often I felt like I was doing it when it was unnecessary.
In our largely materialistic culture, there’s a real drive to own more and more stuff. Houses, cars, pools, spas, decks, HDTVs, mowers, jetski’s. The list could go on a very long time. Maybe some of it stems from our fear of boredom, or a sense of entitlement that comes with never being taught how to work hard. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that ownership of stuff presents a paradox best summed up by this line from the movie "Fight Club"
The things you own end up owning you.
I think that self-control as I’ve known it is a hoax. To me, self-control was always something I was supposed to work at. Something to try to have more of. But the funny thing is, the Bible clearly says in Galations 5:23 that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.
I wonder how many people would describe themselves as "driven"? It’s kind of a popular trait to have. I know what it means to be driven. For 30 years I felt driven. By what I didn’t know, I just knew that I needed to get somewhere and I always felt that I should have been there already. A lot of it tied into my desire to have a career in music. I struggled with the feeling that I was wasting my potential, that I hadn’t accomplished enough. I remember telling my band one day "All I want is to hear God say that I’m not screwing this up."