Don't Be a Stranger

By Rick Marschall
Monday Morning Music

CBN.com – My daughter Heather does something that, frankly, startled me the first time I saw it. When she was young she started talking to God.

I don’t mean praying, she did that too. I don’t mean talking about God, she did that too. When she was alone, puttering around her room or walking through the yard, she would talk to God. Like she would talk to friend… which He is. Like He was there… which He was, and always is. Small talk, thoughts, even things to laugh about. Life.

She didn’t “hear voices.” God was her friend, and she talked to Him as a friend would.

I think the contemporary church has lost a lot of the traditional reverence for God that once was commonplace. But at the other end of the spectrum – and, remember, God is a spectrum as wide as the east is from the west – I think we have also lost some of the intimacy that God offers us, and desires with us.

“Friendship with Jesus, fellowship divine! Oh, what blessed sweet communion – Jesus is a friend of mine!” goes the gospel song.

Too many times we see prayer as a fire-extinguisher, behind glass to be broken, and used at times of crisis. Or, we remember to pray especially when we have praise, or to give thanks… that is at the other end of the spectrum, too. But God is jealous, I believe, of the “middle” in our lives. He wants us to talk to Him not only during troubles or joy, but in between, at all times.

“Jealous”? Yes, I believe that. God desires to hear from us, continually, in all circumstances; to commune with us. I have often reminded myself (maybe not often enough) that if I turn most often to God when things are going bad, maybe it’s within God’s nature to send some “things going bad” my way. I don’t believe that is the case with sickness or disease, no, but there are many things we think are trouble at the time, and might indeed be difficult, but when we look back at them, we see that we drew closer to God or learned wisdom. Or prayed more.

Better to keep that communication going, and maybe God won’t need to rattle our cages as often! Is that faulty theology? It has been true in my life, and for my life. How about you?

Don’t be a stranger. Your Friend is close by, and He’s all ears.

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A song on this theme is Dottie Rambo’s I Just Came to Talk with You, Lord, I believe one of the last songs written by this gifted singer/songwriter before her death in 2008. It is emotionally performed by Sheri Easter.

Listen: I Just Came to Talk With You, Lord

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Rick Marschall is the author of more than 60 books and hundreds of magazine articles in many fields, from popular culture (Bostonia magazine called him “perhaps America’s foremost authority on popular culture”) to history and criticism; country music, television history, biography, and children’s books. He is a former political cartoonist, editor of Marvel Comics, and writer for Disney comics. His anthologies of vintage cartoons have won several awards in the US and Europe. He has spoken in Europe on behalf of the US Information Service of the Department of State; in 1995 was consultant to the US Postal Service for a 20-stamp set of commemoratives in the “American Classics” series.

Rick has been a faculty member of New York’s School of Visual Arts; Rutgers University; Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts); and the Summer Institute for the Gifted at Bryn Mawr University. He was the founder and Editor of nemo Magazine; co-founder and Contributing Editor of Hogan’s Alley magazine; and Managing Editor of Rare Jewel magazine, the Christian worldview journal of culture and politics. Currently he is Managing Director of Rosebud Archives, a publisher of vintage graphic art; and President of Marschall Books, an imprint of Fantagraphics Books.

For 10 years he has been active in the Christian field, writing devotionals; co-authoring The Secret Revealed with Dr. Jim Garlow (FaithWords, 2007); and writing a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for the “Christian Encounters” series by Thomas Nelson. Rick was on the editorial staff of the 1599 Geneva Bible Restoration Project (Tolle Lege Press, 2007).