It All Depends...

Last Saturday evening, many of the employees from my place of work gathered at the local bowling alley for a party. It was a good time of fun, food, drink and fellowship as we ate pizza, enjoyed a few beers and laughed together while throwing bowling balls at pins.

One of the things I observed during the bowling was that many of the men rolled the ball as hard as they could, apparently trying to "kill" as many pins as possible. Sometimes it worked, sometimes they found only the gutter.

On the other hand, one of the women simply rolled the ball down the alley at a slow, leisurely pace. It would take a while to reach the pins, but most of the time, when it finally arrived, it was in the right area, and she would get a strike. She had one of the higher scores for the evening.

Yesterday morning on our bible study call, we were reflecting on the topic: "Dependence on God", and especially the verse from Zechariah 4:6, "Not by power, nor by might but by my Spirit says the Lord of Hosts." How often we depend on our own strength, our own ideas, our own way of doing things, thinking that we know best. God is waiting to take our hand, lead us through the darkness, pain, struggle, difficulty that we find ourselves in. Yet, so often we think that we must do it alone, or that we must prove something using only our own power and might.

It is always amazing to me that each person, each generation seems to operate under the impression that history began at the moment that they set foot upon this earth. Nothing that preceded their birth has any value, and certainly not any wisdom or knowledge from which they could gain insight. As a result, each generation, and even each individual has to relearn the lessons of history, make the same mistakes that others have suffered through.

What we are invited to do through the stories of our ancestors in the faith, both in our own families and in the Scriptures, is to see the pattern that we all go through. We try to live by our own strength, our own plan. Then we stumble, fall on our faces. If we are down low enough, we look up, cry out for help, and then God comes to our aid and lifts us up. We go along for a while, hand in hand with God. Then we think that we can do it on our own again, that we don't need God. So, the cycle begins all over again.

Our greatest sin is not that we do terrible things, like lie, cheat, steal or kill others. Our greatest sin is that we FORGET! We forget that we depend upon God for every breath we take. We forget that without God we can do nothing. We forget all the times that God has been faithful to us. We forget the many occasions when God has saved our hide (literally and figuratively!). We FORGET -- and then we act as though God is not there.

What a wonderful opportunity Lent is to REMEMBER! To remember Who God Is, who I am, and how the two are connected. It's not by my might or my power that I will knock down the pins of life, but by the Spirit of God. What a relief that is. Would that I could remember it always!