GET THE PICTURE?
Have you ever been to Peggy's Cove? Peggy's Cove is a beautiful fishing village about 40 minutes outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia. If you've ever looked at a calendar with any lighthouse shots, chances are one of them is of Peggy's Cove. People from all around the world come to Peggy's Cove just to take pictures. Now, after seeing it for myself, I can see why! What a magical place!
We went there a few years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.. It was a nice sunny day, and I found the rugged beauty of the landscape both unique and breathtaking. I've seen a lot of beauty in my life, but I've never seen a place quite like this! Standing there is nothing short of a spiritual experience. The village itself is a step back into time. It retains the simple beauty of a turn of the century fishing village untouched by the commercialism of our fast-paced world. The sight of the village immediately communicates a sense of belonging, of community, of family.
Then there's the lighthouse. As you approach this beautiful beacon, the first thing that greets you is a large expanses of black rock smoothed and shaped by some of the highest waves along that coastline. Their beauty and strength are breathtaking. Every few seconds a large explosion of white bursts upon them as the fluid motion of waves that have travelled who knows how long, finally meet the immovable rock of the shoreline. WOW!
But what really made the trip for me was that it was one of those rare occasions that I managed to remembered our camera. Now, you have to realize something — cameras and I have never been on speaking terms. Cameras avoid my hand at all cost. I've forgotten to bring a camera more times than I have misplaced my keys and my wallet combined! Now that's a lot of forgetting, believe me!
I took about fifteen pictures while we were there. I remember an overwhelming sense of inspiration overflow my being as I clicked and snapped. I guess I figured that this place was so beautiful that even I could capture it on film! All at once I felt at one with my camera. I wasn't some touristy geek looking for a Kodak moment — I was an artist dealing with form and light and composition. I went nuts as I took pictures at different angles. Then, I waited for just the right moments to take the pictures so that I got the full effect of the waves exploding against the rocks. No doubt about it, I was going for the front cover of National Geographic. It was a lot of fun.
Well, true to form, I finally got the film developed about three months after that. (I'm not very prompt when it comes to developing film) Surprise, surprise! What a disappointment! My experimental pictures looked ordinary, and the exploding waves were all wet. The best I can say about these pictures is that they bear a resemblance to Peggy's Cove, but they are far from the real thing. They are mere shadows of the majestic beauty of that place. Somehow I took the magical and made it mundane. Oh, well, at least I have my memories, and I know that I can go back there sometime.
But, want to know something? It's easy for us to do the same thing with our faith. We can take the magic of our relationship with God and turn it into a mundane walk through the land of do's and don'ts. The beauty and intimacy of knowing God can easily be reduced to mere shadows — form without substance religion. Yuk! Fantastic Faith transformed into Photographic Faith — something that bears a resemblance to the real thing, but ultimately, it leaves us disappointed!
Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? If you've been a Christian for any length of time, chances are that you do. It is natural for us to digress from fantastic to photographic unless we guard against it. And how do we guard against it? Well, how do we stop any relationship from turning into dull duty? It takes effort on our part. We have to focus on the person of Christ, not the ritual of Christianity. And that can be a hard thing to do!
One of my favourite movies is "Fiddler on the Roof". At one point in the movie, Tevia asks his wife if she loves him. Her reply is a list of things: "I've given you children, I've cooked and cleaned, for twenty-five years, and you ask me if I love you?" But he isn't satisfied with her comments and wants to hear the words--"I love you!" Sometimes we confuse actions with relationship. It's true that our love is expressed in our actions, but it is also true that there is a danger of "doing", instead of "loving".
Like a father who never spends time with his children because he is out working to provide for them, we can often equate the things we do with loving, but often they're not the same thing at all.
The bottom line is that a healthy relationship comes only from time spent with the people we love. Yes, Jesus wants you to serve. Yes, he wants you to be an active member of His Body, exercising the gifts that He has provided. But, before anything else, He wants you! He wants your attention, your heart, your time spent with Him in intimate fellowship.
Get the picture?
