For the Computer Nerds

Several months ago Jen and I purchased a new television. I also convinced my lovely wife that she'd appreciate my having a TV tuner card for my computer. (I convinced her that we would no longer need a VCR and could therefore save a bit of space during the move.) I encountered a problem though, I couldn't get the video signal from my computer to the television. Over the past month or so I've tried everything I could think of without success. But a couple nights ago it occurred to me that I haven't updated my video card drivers for quite some time. I updated and within a half hour I had everything running like I had hoped it would for so long. I was so proud of myself for finally getting it to work.

The next day I was cleaning up and it occurred to me that I really wasn't personally responsible for most of the work that made my system work. Most of the credit should really go to the programmers and computer engineers who have spent years of their lives to develop the products and software. All I did was purchase, put together, download, and install--all comparatively small tasks. However, without my having participated in the process my computer and television would still have significant communication issues. So, even though I didn't do much I still had to do something.

Isn't that like spiritual growth? All we're really responsible for is trusting, accepting, and obeying God--He's done all the real work. I think the temptation is to focus on one extreme to the exclusion of the other. For instance, Calvinism insits that God determines everything and I have not input at all whereas Arminianism focuses on my free will to either accept or reject God almost to the exclulsion of God's having any part of it. I'd claim that neither (and both) are correct. God's responsible for almost everything concerning my salvation--He's created the world and me, He's revealed who He is and what He wants, He humiliated Himself and completely rejected His rightful dignity as God and became human, He chose to sacrifice Himself just so that it'd be possible for me to be near Him. So much. However, He's left me the final decision. I can either reach out my hand or lift a finger and truly touch Him or I can turn around and ignore His very real and near presence. It's up to me. I don't have to do much, but I do have to do something. And everyday I try to consciously make that decision to reach out to God and invite Him to join me in my life as I try to join Him in His. And I think that that--practicing the presence of God--is spiritual growth.