It was a Sunday night, December 21. My wife and I packed our three kids into the mini-van and headed out to our church to attend a Christmas service at our church in Holland, MI. When we arrived, we split up: My wife to drop the baby off in the nursery, while I took the big kids to find a seat. At the door to the auditorium, we were met by greeters with large baskets of glow sticks.
"Don't crack them yet!" they told us as we each grabbed one. "We'll all do it at the same time. They'll let you know." It would be a miracle if my kids made it 10 minutes... That glow stick was suddenly the most seductive temptation they had ever experienced.
The service was mostly worship; We sang several songs, some old hymns (which I love) and some newer ones. That night was particularly difficult for me. I remember feeling disconnected from everyone, even as we worshiped and sang some of my favorite Christmas songs. I desperately desired connection with God. The night seemed charged with energy and excitement, so my struggles to really feel a connection with God and my church seemed extremely out of place.
Near the end of the service, the worship leader began to speak:
"As we gather here tonight worshiping God for the amazing gift he has given us - Jesus Christ - Let us remember that those of us who have placed our faith and trust in Jesus Christ - We have entered a very special relationship with God - He has given us something very special - a deposit - in our hearts. This is the Holy Spirit, and through the Holy Spirit, God lights up our lives, in many many ways, so that our lives become an amazing light in this world. We shine out into the world declaring God's love for the world! So now take the glow sticks you were given at the door, crack them, and raise them high as a symbol of the special relationship we have with God, and as a symbol of the light we shine out into the world in this special time of year!"
The lights dimmed, and my kids cracked their glow sticks with gusto, relieved to finally realize what they had no doubt been obsessing with for almost an hour. I cracked mine too, and soon the auditorium began to glow with the light of hundreds of blue lights. As we began to sing the next song, I looked down at my glow stick, and what I saw changed my life forever.
My glow stick was defective.
As I eyed the tiny feeble glow that came from the bottom of my stick, my annoyance was quickly replaced with dismay as the symbolism sunk in. Tears flooded my eyes as the implications of this event began filling my mind. Then came the anger.
I know it's silly, but it's hard to overstate the impact this had on me in that moment. There I stood, surrounded by a thousand glowing points of light, held high by a thousand worshiping souls. Each person's blue light was a glaring representation of something they had, but was wholly unavailable to me: A relationship with God.
Why did this happen? If God has any sort of influence in this world at all, why would he allow this particular glow stick to make it into my hands, on this particular night? I could think of two reasons:
1) God really doesn't want a relationship with me. Maybe the Calvinists are right; God chooses whom to draw near to him. He doesn't want me. Okay, God. Thanks for the message. I finally hear it loud and clear.
2) God wants us to "have faith" and this is one way I can do that. But when I place myself in his place (by imagining how I feel about my own kids) it is clear that December 21, 2014 was a pretty critical night to get things right, and make sure the defective stick doesn't make it into Joe's hands. Either God doesn't really care, or he's just a pretty big Jerk.
3) God isn't real.
After some retrospection, I think it's safe to say that God and I parted ways that night. It took me a couple more months to finally be honest with myself and admit that I didn't believe he existed. But that was the night when I realized that if he does exist, he's not someone I want to be friends with.
No comments:
Post a Comment