Background Music?

 "Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists." Hebrews 11:6....."God drifts to the back of our minds, and before we know it, He's an idea, a quiet piece of background music to our lives." Chris Tiegreen

Practical atheists. I first heard that term some years back, and it described how so many professing "believers" were living. They're still among us. Maybe we're, maybe you're among them. Perhaps not full time. He can be real enough to us in the crisis, but in our day to day experience and awareness of Him.....not so much. He really is relegated to "background music" in our day to day reality.

For such Tiegreen writes of their connection with Him, "He doesn't exist in any way that's meaningful to them. And that doesn't lead to any kind of meaningful experience with Him." What that means is that in our day to day thinking, choices, and consciousness, He's no more real to us than He is to someone who doesn't believe in Him at all. We are indeed, "practical atheists."

This truth invites His searching of our lives and actions. Do we really order our lives and ways before Him? Do we truly seek His guidance, His heart, and His will? Does the thought of what pleases Him ever enter into our choices and desires? Do our lives actually reflect that we rely far more upon our strength, our wisdom, and our intelligence than they do His? Is He nothing more than a Sunday morning God, which means He is really no God to us at all?

The thing about background music is that you hear it while not really hearing it at all. We can function quite well without the melody or notes making any impression upon us. We have a vague awareness of it, but it goes no further. It has no impact upon us beyond that. Is that also how it is with the Father and us? Is He just a faint melody living in the background and nothing more? 

I have often conversed with people who flatly state their belief in Him, but who, when confronted about His will and purpose for their lives, begin to tell me about "the real world" they live in. In other words, His ways do not fit into what they see as the true reality. He's a nice idea, One they tip their hat to, but it ends there. Their awareness of Him ends when they reach the church parking lot, or when they walk out the door of their home each morning. He's little more than background music, and too often, He's not even that.

How vital is our relationship with Him? Is He on the fringe of our life, or at the center of it. Is our belief in Him a powerful witness and testimony in the midst of an unbelieving culture, or are we practical atheists, every bit as unbelieving as the culture we profess to have come out of?

Blessings,
Pastor O