Ten-pin bowling...with a lesson

A fellow YWAM staffer on the base here, Ramy, and I, can quite often be found in ‘Glengormley Superbowl’ on a Monday or Tuesday, when they have a “two for one” bowling offer on those days. It’s a good time of getting away for night out, and a chance to talk through our weeks and what’s going on in our lives.

This past week opened my eyes to something I did not know.

Apparently for the last 22 (nearly 23 for anyone who’s counting ☺) years of my life, I have been bowling the wrong way! I have always wondered how people manage to get so much power behind the bowling ball, and always blamed my lack of dedication to an upper body weights routine! But, I realised this week it’s because I have been bowling (try to imagine this…) throwing the ball with the back of my hand pointed towards the pins, instead of my palm facing upwards after I let go of the ball.

Hopefully that makes sense. But if not, it doesn’t really matter! Long story short, I’ve been bowling wrong, and there’s a much better way to do it! I discovered a way that seems to work a lot better, a way that provides me with a lot better chance of getting rid of those pesky pins.

In the same way, I’ve realised that I’m on a bit of a hunt for a new way of doing “relationship” with God. For a lot of my life, my relationship with God has been, for lack of a better word, “cyclical”. I am generally hot or cold in my interaction with our creator, either finding it hard to escape from his presence and the knowledge that he is closer than the air around us, or else, finding it hard to imagine he’s there at all.

I’m not sure why this is, but I know that this isn’t the way God intended His relationship with us to be. One thing I know for sure is that it doesn’t have anything to do with God, no matter what we do, he doesn’t desert us, or leave us abandoned to ourselves. So that leaves me to the conclusion that it must have something to do with the way I’m relating to Him.

What, the question is, can I do differently?

That’s a question I’m not quite able to answer just yet I don’t think! I’m trying to explore God in new ways, discover Him in places I didn’t expect. I think a big part of this journey is seeing God in every aspect of my life. If I try to compartmentalise my life, saying “this is the ‘God’ part and this is ‘my’ bit” then I’m leaving Him out of something pretty serious. God doesn’t want a part of our life, he wants our everything, but this is something that’s pretty easy to say and can be difficult to put into practice!

As for now, I realise that there’s so much more to explore about my relationship with God. I realise I don’t have it sorted, and I doubt (in fact I’m SURE) I won’t have it sorted this side of eternity. But one thing I’m sure about is that there are ways of meeting God that I haven’t explored, and these are the ones I’m interested in. Seeing God in new places and experiencing Him in ways I didn’t think I could!

Here’s to 22 years of bowling like an eejit, and 22 more of discovering that there’s so much more to God than what we see or know now.