A Little Bit of Everything

I heard a song the other day called, “A Little Bit of Everything” by Dawes.  It’s beautiful and haunting.  It’s kind of sad, yet triumphant.  It makes you want to cry and it makes you realize we are all in this together.  I can’t get it out of my mind.

My favorite line in it is “All these psychics and these doctors, they’re all right and they’re all wrong.  It’s like trying to make out every word when they should simply hum along.”

Aren’t we all like that sometimes? 

We try to figure out everything that’s going on.  We analyze and discuss and try to piece everything together like a puzzle where each event and person and encounter has its own special spot.  We want to put our lives into an orderly picture where everything makes sense. 

I realized that I am like this with my faith.  I tend to “try to figure out every word” when it comes to faith.  I want to gather information and read books and listen to speakers and join groups and pray and attend retreats and learn and figure out and debate and DECIDE.

Sometimes I feel I need to make definitive, grand statements about my faith and I need to KNOW all the answers.  Faith becomes something else to be ACHIEVED – today.  Right on the list between laundry and dinner is “Figure out everything about my faith and state it emphatically to the world.”  

What a joke.

What I’m thinking now is that faith is “A little bit of everything”. 

Sometimes faith is reading and listening and praying and studying.  Other times faith is just living and laughing and being a good friend and walking side by side with your neighbor.  Sometimes it is church and bible study and sometimes it is surfing and swimming and watching the stars. 

God is in everything and to know Him, sometimes we have to stop striving to know Him with our brains and just open the door and let him in.  We can let him into our lives and our relationships and our hearts.  We can stop trying to figure Him out and just walk with Him and hum along to His beautiful song. 

I’m happy I don’t have to decide everything today about my faith.  There is so much I don’t know.  In fact, the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.  There are so many stories I haven’t read.  There are stories of people like you and me.  There are stories of people that God has used to bring about His kingdom.  There are stories of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters.  There are stories of sinners and saints and people who question and people who laugh.  There are stories of love and hate and revenge and forgiveness.  These stories are like yours and mine – full and complex and intriguing.  These stories are like our lives, they include “a little bit of everything”. 

And then there’s my story…and your story and they are nowhere near completion.  Maybe one day when I look back on my life, I’ll see it clearly but for today, I have to just live it.   What if we are so busy thinking about the story, we are missing it?  For now, I’m not going to try to figure out anything, I’m just going accept my part in God’s song and humbly “hum along”. 

If you want to listen to the song by Dawes, click here:   A little bit of everything  Enjoy!