Sports bars are great places to go to. You have the sights and sounds of a key game going on and you can easily get caught up in the moment when some great event occurs. When the Browns drafted Johnny Manziel a few weeks ago, Cleveland sports bars hit the national and even the international news.
But I have found a sports bar to be a terrible place to take my wife out on a date. Why? Because our date nights are our time to have communication, a dialogue. The distraction of the big game, the sights and sounds are just too much for me. So the person closest to me is crowded out by the distractions of the environment.
How much so with God. He doesn't try to communicate over the noise of our environment. He gives us free will to come to him in relationship. But we defer to the noise of the sports bar of life. We succumb to the distractions. There is lack of personal development then in intimacy with God. God wants to be intimate with us, to communicate with us. But we have to seek Him in the quietness of our heart and block out distractions. I find my best time with God is in the morning when those distractions are less.
I confess that there are days I come home and I am toast. I just want to sit on the couch with clicker in hand just searching for something to dumb my brain. It is work to sit and communicate with my wife. Communication can be so hard. Some of my friends say they can't make time for a "quiet time" with God. Imagine if every night with my spouse was a sports bar or a brain dumbing night on a couch. Wouldn't take much to assume that the relationship would suffer. So with our Creator God who loves for us to spend time with Him.
Note today is my 29th wedding anniversary. I am very thankful for my best friend who has put up with me for so long.
Excellent post. And there is no one else I would rather spend the next 29 years with.
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