Every year we watch a few favorite old Christmas movies including "The Bishop's Wife" with Cary Grant. In this movie, David Niven, the bishop, is obsessed with funding and building a new cathedral.
Cary Grant, an angel, arrives to answers the bishop's prayers. But in the end, the major donor decides instead to give the money to the poor. Shocked and crestfallen, the bishop asks the angel,
"What about my cathedral? That's what I prayed for!"
Cary reminds him that what he actually prayed for was 'guidance,' wrongly assuming that God shared the bishop's personal drive to 'have' a cathedral.
In my marketing world, we've come through a period of promising people to have things "their way." I saw a huge, building sized banner at a recent tradeshow that promised professional attendees they could, "Get the results...your way," not unlike the old hamburger commercial.But there is a notable shift in that kind of messaging. In today's gritty environment of cost savings and cutbacks, it appears greedy and unseemly to put a me-need before a value-based outcome need.
A friend reminded me that we might soon see that same shift in spirtual expectations.
It's not uncommon for people to measure church-going satisfaction by what they 'get out of it.' I include myself in the millions of people on any given Sunday who have stayed home or gone for a drive because I just didn't 'feel like' sitting in church that day. Me, me and...me.
But idealizing and repeating the perfect Sunday experience for our own pleasure and fulfillment isn't the goal of worship. We are so fortunate to have a God who desires relationship with us. So blessed to have a communication channel of prayer, and a reference book of scripture. It's God who is worthy of our worship. We "get" to come into contact with Him. If that's inconvenient or tiresome on any given Sunday - or before saying Grace at our next meal - or prayers at the end of the day...then there's a DVD-ready lesson from the bishop in Cary Grant's Christmas movie: Its about us giving God the glory.
"And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment; to bring all things in heaven and on earth under one head, even Christ." Ephesians 1:9-10
What do you believe?
