Discovering Facets of God

         I apologize ahead of time for the rambling that is going to occur in this blog.  I haven't thought through all of this yet, but I am learning so much about God that I want to share it and get it down before I forget.  One of the reasons I wanted to study abroad was to learn more about God.  I know that is not a typical reason for studying abroad, but I believe that the different races and cultures in the world can teach us different truths about God's character.  For example, a church body is made up of believers that are given different spiritual gifts and the body only works when all members are performing their specific gifts.  These gifts are manifestations of different "traits" of God.  If you then broaden this concept to different cultures and races, there is so much more to learn about God!! God's being encompasses the love and enjoyment of life of the Spaniards, the passion of the French, the drama of the Italian, and the fire of the Irish.  I have learned a lot about how different people's cultural backgrounds can be and how important it is not to judge people's form of worship, etc. because for them, it may seem perfectly normal.  However, I need to admit that the other day, I judged a couple based on their ethnicity, and immediately was rebuked by God who reminded me that these people were image bearers of God as well.  Today at church, there was a mission team from a Bible school in Denmark.  There was a student from France, and we started talking about the different burdens God has laid on our hearts.  It was amazing to me how passionate and worked up he got about his beliefs.  There aren't many American guys who will get that passionate about their beliefs.
       Another lesson I have been learning, is that the experiences we have in our lives shape who we are.  I recently learned about how my host family lost a son a few years ago.  I was thinking about how hard that must have been for them and how I wished I could take the pain from them.  But then I remembered Lois Lowry's book The Giver and I realized, that sterilized world is exactly what we would be like if we didn't have our memories.  Memories remind us of past experiences, painful and beautiful, and how we deal with these memories/experiences, determines who we are.  Do we turn to God? or away? Without these, we would be like robots living in ignorance without any depth of character.
      This final lesson seems rather random compared to everything else. Today I was wondering why I didn't love to listen to classical music like all my fellow musician friends and colleagues.  I also wondered why I don't always have a passion for playing my instrument.  I mean, I love to play and fiddle around and make up stuff, but I don't like practicing or even playing standard music sometimes.  Today I realized it was because I didn't see a purpose to the music.  It was notes on a page to me and nothing more.  It was someone else's expression and not mine.  I also didn't see how playing standard violin repertoire was praising God.  However, it suddenly hit me that music in its essence is a creation of God's.  I have always known this, but it suddenly made sense to me that, if I am playing music with the intent to worship God, then it is glorifying to Him because He created music.  Granted music can be twisted by mankind to be the complete opposite, but when I am practicing unaccompanied Bach, I can appreciate the complex sounds as something a man put together using the sonorities created initially by God. Therefore, even when I am practicing, I am worshiping God through music.
I hope all of my ramblings made sense!!