Spiritual dominoes

May 28, 2008

Colossians 4:2-6

“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, so that I may reveal it clearly, as I should. Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.”

We had a dominoes game in our home when I was growing up, but I am embarrassed to tell you that I never learned to play it. Instead, I took the dominoes and lined them up to see if I could make them fall with each domino hitting the successive domino in the line. It was only moments ago that my friend, Peggy, educated me in the game. After hearing her instruction, it struck me that the Christian life is like dominoes. Some of us have the game—we say we are Christian—but we never play it—we don’t really live the life. We fail to prove by our living and our relating to others that we are living out of a spiritual relationship with God.

Then it dawned on me that this passage is very similar to my way of playing with the dominoes. There is an effect that each “spiritual” domino, if you will, has on the next one. Let’s say we choose to engage in prayer. We begin, then, with the prayer domino. Paul says that we should devote ourselves to prayer. We have to be intentional about making time to pray and listen to God. If we invest in that prayer domino we find that it falls naturally into the “Source relationship” domino.

This second domino is the place where because of our dedication to prayer and listening to God, we begin to recognize that we have a relationship with God, who is our Source. We develop a new connection that engages both the mind and the spirit. This Source relationship domino then naturally taps the transformation domino.

At the stage of the third domino, we have committed ourselves to prayer, have a relationship with God and come to look honestly at ourselves. When we look in the spiritual mirror we see that our hearts are experiencing positive transformation. We are beginning to become gracious among other positive qualities. This domino falls then toward the thanksgiving domino.

When we reach the fourth domino of the spiritual life, not only do we have a committed prayer life, a growing relationship with God and are seeing the effects within ourselves, now we realize how very grateful we are for what God is doing in our lives. This puts us into a new and right disposition of love. We find that we are exhilarated by our growth and by the things that are happening in our lives. With that experience, our domino falls toward the “other relationship” domino.

At this fifth stage, we realize that our personal transformation is not only affecting us, it begins to affect the way that we interact with others. Our relationships begin to improve because some things have changed within us that allow us to respond to others less out of self and more out of love. We suddenly are able to utilize tools that in some cases might be new to us and in other cases might be things we understood only intellectually. Now, thanks to our rooting in prayer, we understand them experientially. This in turn causes our domino to tap the domino of someone else.

At this last stage, someone else becomes the beneficiary of our transformation and wants to know how we have claimed such peace. How have our lives been transformed? They too begin to want to play this came of spiritual dominoes and so they set up their prayer domino and the cycle begins for them.

This is Paul’s message of the passage: that Christ transforms the lives of others when we allow ourselves to be transformed by Christ. We begin to see that we aren’t separate from each other—that at our core—we are all spiritual beings—we just have to claim that status. Life is easier for us and for everyone around us when we choose that status.

Today, Paul asks us to take a hard look at our lives and determine if they are flavorful. If not, then all we have to do is start to play the spiritual domino game. Even if we’ve been Christians in name for a long time, we can begin to play at any moment by simply starting to pray.

Today, I would ask, are you willing to look honestly at your life? Are you able to discern places of growth—both where you need to grow and where you have allowed God to transform you? What are those places for you? Where on the cycle of the spiritual domino game to you need to invest effort? There is always room for growth for each one of us. We simply have to choose to play the game. This day may we find joy in the experiences of our Christian living! Amen.