when life seems out of tune

"Sometimes", as in the words of Rich Mullins (Hold Me Jesus), "my life just don't make sense at all." It has seemed a bit like that lately for me. Maybe it's because I'm out of tune with the Giver of all good songs. Maybe it's just a difficult season of life that inwardly I'm going through. Probably some of both.

I think sometimes I lose much or all of the sense of the Presence that is meant to pervade all, and in the end for the redeemed, will. God as Father, Son and Spirit, is the One in whom we as humans are meant to live through Jesus. But that sense of loss only drives me to seek God all the more in prayer, or to do so, period.

I think in this that God is at work, seeking to get me more in tune with who he is. I so easily get out of tune, but this seems more so lately. Maybe it's just that I've picked up a keener sense of God's tune and see that my life is not as much in harmony as I may have thought at brief moments. Or maybe it's just that I am more sensitive to the disharmony between myself and God and others.

Oh, to hear the music of God; I want to hear that music. And then I want my life with others to be lived in our harmonizing around that music in God. I speak metaphorically now, though our love for music and songs surely is somehow related to this. That is part of my prayer right now, that with others, we can hear and live in the "music" and "song" God has for us now. And that this sound would go out into all the world, in Jesus.

what god is it?

When we use the word "god", a good question I think we should ask is "what god is it?" I hope this is not harsh; it is meant only to make us think. I read or hear the words "god" in connection with all kinds of earthly things as seeking or attributing God's blessing to it, but I wonder just how God sees it.

Gods are everywhere, and our view of God might just be more like a god than like the one true god. When we think God's blessing is on whatever we choose to do, we might be headed towards a different god than the one in Scripture to whom we're to pray:

your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

I am fearful of losing sight of the Fear of Isaac and the God of Jacob. The same god, I believe who is the triune God of scripture: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A god who in no way we can figure out or trace his paths or understand.

Let us beware of bringing the name of God so freely as one who approves and blesses our will, our plans, our agendas. This includes the use of the name of God both on an individual as well as national scale. On an international scale this would be getting closer to what God is all about as we see from scripture, God's kingdom ruling over all. But even that use of the word "god" is subject to idolatry as we make God in our own fallen image, rather than in Jesus being lifted more and more into the true image of God.

So let's be careful about how we use God's name and with what we associate his name with. Let's be more sensitive and humble about this, asking God that we would know God for who God really is. That we would avoid making God into something God is not. And that our lives would be in line with God's will, not that God would be in line with us.

I know this is a heavy subject for a Saturday and a weekend. But what thoughts might you want to add here?