Wanting More

So I was spending some time practicing and a thought occurred to me. (“Wow Charlie, you developed a thought.” Pretty surprising I know).

We as Christians have serious troubles with listening. This applies to many different contexts but I’m referring specifically to listening to God. 

We spend lots of time doing Christian activities (that is a good thing) and hopefully lots of time in God’s word and prayer. We strive to find God and meet with Him. We try to follow where he is leading because we know that is what He wants and is best for us. 

But how good are we at listening?

Let me explain why this thought came to my mind.  This might seem quite odd to some of you but I’ll do my best to explain. Quite often when someone is trying to learn an instrument they learn “how” to play that instrument. Let’s take the piano as an example. They have an understanding of how it’s suppose to sound and how to make it sound that way. So practice time is spent trying to manipulate the piano to sound the way it’s suppose to. 

Here’s the odd part that most people don’t realize. When most people are playing an instrument they don’t actually listen or hear what they are playing. You may be thinking  ”that sounds funny, how do they not hear it?”. When playing most people can hear when they hit a wrong note or make a big mistake but don’t hear the sound of the instrument and or the musc they are playing. A popular (and excellent) exercise that many people do is to record their playing to hear it back and listen to how it sounded.  That is a great exercise but did you catch that? We have to record ourselves to hear how we sound! Very few people learn how to listen to their instrument as they are playing. They don’t hear the flow and the movement, the expression, the subtle harmonies or how the sound is filling the room. They are too busy learning how to manipulate their instrument instead of hearing what they sound like and adapting to it. Best example I can give is someone absolutely reefing on their instrument.  It’s loud but it sounds like garbage. Every instrument has a volume where it “sings” and we need to learn to listen for that.

In the example of classical pianists that’s what separates a good player from a great one. With the great ones you don’t just hear a lot of notes played really fast, you hear harmonies and textures and emotion. Yes they are playing fast and fancy but it’s about so much more than the notes. 

When I look at people of faith whom I admire and have been great examples to me they have that listening quality. Yes they do lots of things but it’s about so much more than those things and it’s not done with the intent to (for lack of a better word) manipulate  God. They are in a relationship with Him and when they spend time with God it is a two way street. They are listening to and in tune with God.  They aren’t doing it just to get everything right, they are doing so they can hear God, see how He meets with them and fills the spaces in their lives.

Hi Everyone.

Found this really cool video on YouTube that I thought I’d share. Just an awesome example of thinking outside the box creativity. RSS readers will need to click to the site.

So yesterday morning I had very cool and annoying experience.  

It was about 6:30 in the morning and the kids had actually let us sleep a little but I was in and out of consciousness singing in my head a verse from the hymn I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.  I looked it up the following morning and it was verse 2 I was sing over and over. 

“The world behind me, the cross before me;

The world behind me, the cross before me;

The world behind me, the cross before me;

No turning back, no turning back.”

It was annoying because it was 6:30 and the only chance I’ve had to sleep-in for a very long time. But it was cool because that was exactly what I needed to hear that morning. Life around has been quite crazy, a little scary and not going as smoothly as we’d like. I mentioned our car troubles last week. Well the night before we had made a decision on what we were going to do. We decided we’d fix our car even though we found out there was much more to fix than we originally thought. 

I’ve had some shoulder problems in the past but it has been feeling great. However since last Tuesday I’ve had a horrible pain in my low back. Unable to bend over very far, play piano or do much with the kids. Found out our accountant and bookkeeper is not going to be able to work this year due to some circumstances in her life. Add on some usual daily stress and it’s been a fairly trying time. Just can’t seem to get the momentum going in our direction right now.  That can make me struggle with some of our recent life decisions and cause unnecessary struggles.

But through all of this my wife and I have been praying more as a couple and have been very close which is of the utmost importance in stressful times. Our kids continue to bring us great joy and make us laugh. And most importantly we have been feeling close to and lead by God. Knowing that our decision to follow him and leave the world behind is the right one. That the difficulties we are facing right now are minor in the grand scheme of things and that God does want good things for us. 

So waking up singing a song I can recall only hearing once and declaring in my spirit the world is behind me and the cross is before me is a great way to start the day.

Hey everyone. It’s the start of a new week and time to talk about how we can all fight resistance. Resistance being that which stops us from doing the things we were created to do. If you missed previous posts you can find them by clicking the Resistance Fighters link in the categories section. 

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet.

The thing to remember this week in our battles is that despite how it seems, resistance is an internal force.  We quite often will try to blame our struggles to accomplish our goals on things outside of ourselves or our circumstances.  ”If I only had more money”, “if my kids weren’t in the way”, “If only my boss didn’t ride me like that” etc. 

Resistance doesn’t come from these outside opponents it comes from within. We generate it ourselves and use outside excuses to continue giving in and justify it.  It’s important that we accept the responsibility and not cast blame.  We need to examine our lives and get to the root of what is holding us back. 

The last few weeks haven’t gone exactly like I would have liked them to. There have been some external pressures but I can’t really blame them for me not taking the full responsibility in accomplishing my goals.  So this week with God’s help I’m working on changing my attitude so I can  step up and fight the battle in myself.

So yesterday was an interesting day. 

My car has been making some funny noises so I was taking it into our family’s mechanic.  Unfortunately that’s three quarters of an hour away in Kitchener. But I get a call from my pal asking if I want to go to Toronto with him and get a private demo on some gear we’ve both been looking at. I figured the car was going to be a while so we made arrangements for him to pick me up and we went.  

We had a great time. We always do. The demo we got was a lot of fun and it was a great time hanging out with the guy who showed us the gear.  The problem is you always leave those sorts of things wanting more stuff. 

Then I go to get my car. It hasn’t been fixed.  I owe them $45 for the diagnosis. You have to realize I love this mechanic and trust them they have been very good to our family. The diagnosis………We need a new bearing in our transmission. The estimate………$2000-2500! 

I knew going to the gear demo that I wasn’t going to be buying anything any time soon but to now have to pay that much for my car was a little like salt in the wound. 

I got home and shared the news with my wife and we were pretty stressed. We’ve been happy with our car but it’s on the small side and we have two kids now so it doesn’t really meet our space needs. So we wrestle with fix this car and committing to it for another year or two or getting a newer car that would suit us better. We decide it’s better to fix the car rather than take on a car payment. 

Needless to say our evening was ruined. We were grumpy and stressed. We’d have to put off getting new windows in the house and this bill was going to put us seriously behind where we wanted to be financially.  As the evening went on though I kept having that nagging feeling of “what the heck do I have to complain about?” Yes it’s frustrating that I have to pay to fix the car. But I own a car. I had dinner with my healthy family. We slept in a bed kept warm by the working furnace in our house without fear of attack or war.  And for the most part those are just superficial or materialistic things. Never mind all the other blessings God has given me. 

I woke up this morning determined to be thankful with the mindset that I have it all. Because I really do.  So much of the reality of our lives is based on our reaction to our circumstances. Sometimes we make situations more than they actually are just because of our mindset and attitude.  Nothing in my situation had changed but my day was so much better just by thanking God for what I do have. 

The interesting thing after all that. I call the car dealership today to get a second quote on the car. They haven’t seen the car yet but have quoted the same job for $1000-15000. My day keeps getting better and better.