Making god more than an accessory

​This memory popped up of something I wrote 7 years ago today. In reading it, I can't help but feel the peace in how much my relationship with God has grown in that time. How God has become far more the car than the accessory in my life since then.

We have a long way to go in this journey, me and God. But with each passing day, God becomes much more than the stereo in my life.

What I wrote 7 years ago:

I remember our cars back in high school. None of us had fancy cars. Few of us did anyways. We had hand me downs and cheap fixer uppers. What we tried to do, though, was turn those ordinary cars into classics by wrapping fancy leather around the steering wheels, hang cool things from the rear-view mirrors, and add loud, window rattling stereos.

Stereos were huge. The biggest jalopy in the school parking lot could instantly become the coolest car there with the right stereo added to the mix.

I've been thinking about God that way this week. How I think sometimes I reach for God as an accessory, an add on, to make my life look and feel better. I get to thinking I can turn this old jalopy of a human being into one that looks and sounds better, one people will like better, if I just add a little God to my life. Add some church here, a prayer or two there. Maybe go all out and wear a cross around my neck. You know, accessorize me with some of the good God stuff.

I'm reminded this week that's not the role God longs to have in my life. If anything, God wants to be the car and wants ME to be the accessory. He wants me to pile in and let that car take me where a God car just might go.

God has no desire to be that thing we wildly reach for in the fruitless pursuit of a better life. Because his desires aren't confined to us having a better life. In fact, I wonder if God will spend any time at all today trying to figure out how Keith can have a better life.

No, God wants to be the vehicle I climb into in search of a deeper longing to make His world a better place to live for all, and a life that's not a product of my hopes and dreams, but his promise of eternal life.