It's Showtime God!

I saw a display of celebratory greatness tonight that rivaled most firework shows I’ve seen. It was awesome. It was also costly. Let me ‘splain...

My whole day is made up of scheduled markers. I must hit each one, or dominoes begin to fall. If I don’t get up at 5:00am, I don’t start my workout on time. If I don’t start my workout on time, I don’t walk out of the house by 7:00am on my way to work. If I don’t make it to exit 77 by 7:50am, I can almost guarantee I will be late for work. I’m a professional software trainer, so I have appointments all day long. When my last session is through, if I don’t leave work by 5:30pm, we don’t start dinner on time. If we don’t start dinner on time, then the bath, reading and bedtime routines for the boys are all off.  And if the bedtime routine for the boys is off, they’ll fight going to bed. If they fight going to bed, the only window of time I have for myself gets smaller and smaller. If my window of time gets too small, and I still have to take care of all those household chores that beckon, then MY bedtime gets threatened. And if MY bedtime gets threatened, I may not get up at 5:00am. And so it goes.

I live a dangerous life.

And when I willy nilly decide to throw caution out the window so that we can go watch a firework show – WITH the kids – that doesn’t even start until 9:30pm…you know I’ve lost my mind. But fireworks shows rarely start at 6:30pm. If it did, I would have planned dinner around it and killed two birds with one stone.  But I digress…

When one wants to see a firework show, one must wait around until the inconvenient hour of half-past-nine.

That is, unless God is the firework show.

I don’t have a scheduled time to meet with God. I have no specific quiet time. That may come as a surprise to you after having just read how structured the rest of my life is. But here’s the deal. Time with God is the only appointment I can hold whenever I want. I dig that.

As I sat watching colors explode tonight, I considered how grateful I am for the freedom that I can meet with God anytime, anywhere, about anything. No appointment necessary. And Lord knows (He really does) the last thing I need in my life is another appointment.

So when do I meet with God? All the time.  In the car on the way to work. When I’m talking with friends or family and can’t come up with the right words to say. When I’m disciplining my kids and I wonder if I’m making good choices. When I pay my bills and wonder about retirement. When I see the sun rise over the lake on my way to work…..

When do I meet with God? Whenever I’m ready for a firework show. Every time He speaks it is like a celebration of freedom…a display of celebratory greatness. And I don’t have to wait until 9:30pm for the show to start.

Praise be to God.

Amen.