We're All Humans, Aren't We?

Reaching Out to God, Sort of

Nine years ago, I had the fantastic opportunity to go to Italy when I attended Trinity Christian College. It was a trip that’s never really left me, staying close to my heart. We started our journey in Milan and worked our way south to Rome through cities like Venice, Florence and Naples. We walked through and touched walls of buildings that were hundreds of years older than America. If there was ever a time that I wished that walls could talk, it was then! I walked through the same paths as Michelangelo, Dante, and the apostles Peter and Paul did.

To say it was awe-inspiring is to sell the word short. There’s nothing more impressive–and impressionable–than walking through buildings suffused with history and wise with age. One of the highlights in a trip chock-full of highlights was the opportunity to visit the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. (Vatican City is its own city, with its own currency, but is situated within Rome.) The experience wasn’t quite as we expected it as it’s a very popular tourist attraction and cameras aren’t allowed as flash photography can degrade the art that was painted between 1508 and 1512. The room that houses the famous painting by Michelangelo isn’t that wide of a room, so we all stood there, a teeming mass of people with their necks craned upward.

The painting itself is a series of vignettes and plenty has been written about how it was done. One particular vignette has always resonated with me and that was what’s been called “The Creation of Adam.” It’s a picture of God giving life to Adam by reaching out to touch him with a strong extended arm and an extended index finger. Here, Michelangelo makes a spot-on commentary about how Man responds to God’s reaching out by showing Adam, instead of reciprocating God’s strong arm and strong finger, extends his arm only halfheartedly and his index finger, barely making an effort to reach out to God.

It’s an image that’s always stuck with me and it’s bothered me why we don’t reach out to God with the same zeal that He reaches out to us. Why is it so easy to reject God after He gave us life? Are we that ungrateful? Paul agrees with Michelangelo, writing to the church in Rome in the book of Romans, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

We’ve become too accustomed to our behavior, thinking that it’s ok to reach out to God only when we need Him, only to scamper off as soon as we get what we need. “Hey, Dad, I just need $20.” “Dad, if I get this, I’ll be set!” “Can you do this for me? Thanks!” This is not the kind of relationship God desires with us. Heck, it isn’t the kind of relationship I want with the kids I hope God blesses me with some day. Unlike the way we often treat Him, God isn’t some reservoir that we can tap when we need something.

Paul writes, again in Romans, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This kind of act demands that we reach out back, not sort of, not kinda, but completely, in full strength, and wholeheartedly in gratitude for He has not just created us, but He also has given us life so that we may live it in full (John 10:10).