Tethered

I grew up in Minnesota in a suburb just outside of Minneapolis.  During the summers we would often head up north to my grandparent’s house.  They lived on a beautiful place just outside of Duluth on Sunshine Lake.  My best memories as a kid took place at Sunshine—fishing, swimming, skiing.  It was paradise.  My grandparents lived in a house next to the original cabin they had built when they first bought the property.  The cabin was old and rustic and was only used during the summers.  Behind the cabin was an old tetherball set.  Tetherball is a game for two people.  You basically have a stationary pole with a volleyball hanging from a rope.  The two players stand opposite one another and try to hit the ball past one another and wind the ball around the pole.  Honestly, it isn’t a terribly fun game—especially when playing against someone taller than you! 

The other day I was praying and God reminded me of that old tetherball set behind our cabin.  As I began to reminisce about the fun times that were had growing up there, it became clear that God was trying to teach me something—namely, that I need to stay tethered to God at all times.  That everything in my life needs to revolve around him. 

The strategy for most people trying to surrender their life to God is that they develop a list of the most important priorities in life—things like marriage, family, work, exercise, hobbies, and so on.  They intuitively know God is to be the most important.  He is to be number one and all other priorities in life are to be considered secondary.  The strategy for many people, then, is to make sure all these different priorities are juggled in such a way that God gets the number one spot.  So people will often develop a list of “God Activities” (things like Bible devotions, church attendance, home group participation) and then they make sure they do those things in order to show that God matters most in their life.  Now, I am not against any of those activities.  I actually think they are critically important, but not because they indicate God’s priority in our life.  The rub here is simply this: God is not to be one priority amongst many in your life.  You aren’t to juggle God alongside the other things in your life.  God is to be your sole focus and the filter through which everything else in your life happens.

Think about the tetherball set once again.  You have a solitary pole with a rope attached at the top from which the volleyball hangs.  The ball always revolves around the pole because it is tethered to the pole by the rope.  And see, this is how a life surrendered to God should look.  You aren’t juggling priorities and trying to give God the number one spot.  You are tethered to God and every priority you have – and yes, some are more important than others – is attached to the rope, and therefore, revolves around God.  Just like every planet in our solar system revolves around the sun so everything in life is to revolve around God and be fully surrendered to him.  So you don’t engage your marriage as a priority separate from God.  You engage your marriage as an extension of your obedience to God.  You don’t engage your parenting as a priority divorced from God.  You engage your parenting in a way that honors God.  You aren’t to break the priorities of life into different compartments giving God the biggest compartment.  You are to live a fully integrated life in which everything is submitted to him.      

Understanding what it means to be tethered to God – to have all priorities in life revolve around him – is incredibly clarifying and freeing.  Too many people walk around with a weight of guilt about how much more they should be giving God.  I know a mom who works full time and has two kids.  She is plagued by a sense of guilt that she owes God more.  She thinks she should be giving God more devotional time despite the limitations of her schedule and stage of life.  Now, some people should be giving God more of their undivided attention.  I am not against that.  But this particular mom desperately needs to understand that her work and her parenting aren’t separate from pursuing God—they are part of the pursuit.  Seeing God as a separate item to be juggled forces us to measure our spiritual vibrancy by the frequency of our religious activity.  Staying tethered to God – living every priority out for him – turns every moment into an act of discipleship, devotion, and spiritual formation.  Live life for God and stay tethered to him.