Brad Hall: HALL THINGS CONSIDERED: God wants to be the conductor -- not an onlooker
Jul. 30—As I wrote about recently, our son Jaxson just turned 3 years old earlier this month.
We celebrated with a Hot Wheels-themed birthday party, and were joined by several members of our family and church family.
A few weeks before that, my wife and I gave our birthday present to Jaxson a little early because we wanted to take him to see Thomas The Train.
He loves trains and cars, and pretty much anything automotive, be it on land or in the air.
He had also been watching a lot of the "Thomas & Friends" cartoon in the weeks and months leading up to that.
So we made a weekend trip to New Haven, Kentucky, where the Kentucky Railway Museum is located.
They were hosting an event where you could see an actual Thomas The Train, and even go for a ride on it.
Additionally, there were several Thomas-themed activities to enjoy around the museum. Jaxson's favorite part was playing with the big toy train tracks they had set up under a big tent.
Despite all of the fun, though, we never did make it on the train ride, even though we had tickets.
Jaxson was enjoying watching the train, and was enjoying playing with the toys and games, but we'll just say he got a little upset when we tried to explain that all of those toys did not belong to him.
So from that point on, he was wound up and we had a feeling he would not want to be stuck inside of a train for the hour-long ride.
As expected, when the train was boarding, he had no interest in hopping on, and was much more content just watching it and playing with the games.
Similarly, at his birthday party, he was also content just watching and running around while the other children rode on tricycles and jumped in the bounce house.
Jaxson certainly loves to play a lot, but oftentimes, he enjoys just hanging around and watching everyone else have fun.
It makes God smile to watch us too, but He wants to be much more than an onlooker.
So often, we think of the Lord as just "the big guy in the sky" looking down on us. But God is right here with us, and He wants us to include Him throughout our days.
He wants us to talk to him through prayer, and He wants us to feel the Holy Spirit move during church and Bible study.
When we have a tough decision to make, God wants to help us decide what would be best.
When we're going through a hard time, God wants to comfort us and carry us along.
But too many times, we ignore the Lord. We don't spend time talking to Him, and we don't turn to him when we have a choice to make.
Instead, we use God and prayer as a last resort when we could have let him be the Lord of our lives from the very beginning.
John 15:5 says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."
God doesn't want to just sit in Heaven and watch our train go by. He wants to be on the train and driving the train to keep us from getting derailed.
