Cliffs Notes

I am an incredibly slow reader. I mean like painfully slow. This made literature classes very difficult for me. Until I found Cliffs Notes. These notes are designed as a study aid to be used along with reading a book. They give the synopsis and character summaries and offer explanations of symbolism used throughout the book. I used these notes as they were intended, meaning I read the book as well, but most people read them in place of the book as a short cut.

What does this have to do with anything? I'm glad you asked. It occurs to me that many of us use church as spiritual cliffs notes. We show up expecting the work to be done for us. We depend on the moderator to put us in the mind of worship, the worship leader to choose the right songs to allow us to enter into God's presence, and the pastor to teach us something we didn't know about God.  If we don't get what we expected from the service we blame the aforementioned participants for not being in tune with God's voice.

And that's the problem, we should be actively seeking God's voice all week long, seeking Him through worship and reading His Word on our own time. There are no short cuts to God's Presence. You can not show up on Sunday and expect the work to be done for you. If you desire God's Presence, you have to put in the work yourself. There is no one else to blame if you don't put in the time on your own.