Just suppose...

Just suppose there is a God. And just suppose he created this universe for a purpose. And let’s imagine that he created humankind as part of that purpose. Now let’s be really reckless in our imagination and suppose that God loves us; in fact that he created us so that we could enjoy a relationship of love with him; him loving us and us loving him. Now let’s imagine that God is at work even now in the world, and it is his desire for humankind to partner with him in that work; that work of spreading his love, his beauty, his truth, his wisdom…

If that were true, what would be the most important thing for us as humans to be doing? Let’s just suppose, let’s just imagine that all that were actually true. How would I respond? How would you respond? What ought we to be doing?

Listening.

If God is God, and God is love, and God is at work, and God wants to partner with you and me in his work, the absolutely most important and most vital and crucial thing for us to being doing is listening to God, so that we will see where he is moving, what he is doing, how he wants us to partner in what he is doing; to be in tune with the movement of his Spirit to be moving to the tune of his Spirit.

But of course we don’t have time for that. We have our plans to manage, our goals to accomplish, our impact to make, our activities to get done, our emails to write, our meetings to rush off to, our funds to raise, our ministry to fulfil.

And because we don’t have time for listening we have grown unaccustomed to knowing how to listen – if we knew in the first place, that is. How do I listen to God? How do I detect and recognise his voice? Unless I stop. And find out how to recognise his voice, and actually listen to God, I am like a bull in God’s china shop, rushing around with all my grandiose plans and goals and impacts and activities.

This world is God’s china shop. He created it with sensitivity and beauty, with life and vivacity. He wants to partner with us, the stewards whom he has appointed to look after it and everything in it, everyone in it. But sorry, God, I don’t have time for that. I’ve got my three-year goals to manage.

But don’t worry. Perhaps there isn’t a God after all, or if there is he isn’t concerned about us, he doesn’t love us, he doesn’t have plans for the world which he wants us to be part of. Perhaps we’ve got carried away in our imagination, and whatever religious creed we give lip-service to, to all intents and purposes we’re just a bunch of atheists.