Month: July 2019

My door isn’t always open. Sometimes it’s shut because I’m changing or sleeping or the wind blew it closed. But just because the door is shut doesn’t mean my kids can’t come in. All they have to do is knock.

 

How many times do we come to a closed door and turn away dejected instead of knocking and asking to be let in?

 

What if it’s like my kids standing at the door of my room?  What if all we need to do is knock and we will be welcomed in by our loving Father?  What if He’s just waiting for us to ask?

 

Keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for. Keep on looking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks.  Matthew 7:7-8

 

Maybe you’re thinking, I have asked, and I haven’t received.  I have knocked, and the door is still firmly shut.  Let’s be honest. There are things we ask for that are selfish things, self-focused things. Mostly we want to be happy and rich with worldly pleasure. Those are good gifts, but they kind of miss the point. God is concerned more with our holiness than our happiness. He knows that happiness is fleeting at best, but holiness leads to joy that lasts forever.

 

Then there are other things we ask for that are good things, but that aren’t part of His plan for us at the time. Maybe you’ve begged God for something, and the answer has been no. You’re in good company.  Jesus Himself was there in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He asked God to spare Him from the Crucifixion. Are you willing to pray like Him, with both persistence and submission? Let all that you desire and intend be accomplished here. May it come into being without any opposition from me. I choose you and your way over my own (Matthew 26:29, my paraphrase).

 

It isn’t always in my children’s best interests for me to give them everything they need before they even know they need it. Sometimes it’s better for them to become aware of their need, that they lack something. We take things for granted when they come without any difficulty – being able to buy groceries, put gas in the car, whatever it might be. But when we have a need and can’t meet it, how grateful we become not only for the provision, but also for the Provider. The seeds of gratitude grow best in the soil of need.

 

So don’t be afraid of a closed door. Although God didn’t spare Jesus the Cross, He comforted and strengthened Him through the angel who came in response to His prayer (Luke 22:43).  When we knock on God’s door, we can be confident that He will always respond with mercy and grace.

Technology is great – when it works.  Have you ever noticed how often it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to?  It’s finally your turn at the DMV counter, and the clerk’s computer freezes.  You’re in a hurry to find someone’s number, and the battery dies on your phone. Machines are wonderful tools because they can perform an action over and over with great reliability, but they aren’t infallible.  They’re subject to wear and tear. Their gears get out of alignment. Their connections get loose.

 

I think sometimes we expect to function like machines.  We want to be able to put our mind and feelings on a certain setting and then always respond in that way.  For example I might decide, I will be patient with my children, and then expect that in every trying circumstance I will respond with patience.  But we’re not infallible. We’re quickly subject to inaccuracy, error, and system failure. And when we don’t respond the way we “should”, we get frustrated, fed up, and disappointed.

 

Sometimes I need a reboot. And sometimes I need a complete overhaul. But when it comes down to it, my heart is fundamentally broken. It doesn’t work right. It has good intentions but it shorts out an awful lot. I want to love others with the stunningly beautiful love that God called me to, that He has extended to me, but I lack the strength, the consistency, the endurance to do it without shortcoming or error.  I can’t.  I’ve always needed God to enable me.

 

The enemy wants us to believe that we cannot be fixed. But God wants us to know that we’re in need of repair. He wants us to recognize that our hearts are broken, they don’t work right, and need to be remade.  When we do, He says if we bring our hearts to Him He “will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart” (Ezekiel 36:26).

 

God isn’t frustrated by our performance and He doesn’t get fed up with us because He didn’t make us to be machines, but children. His love for us is both everlasting and unfailing (Jeremiah 31:3) and it has absolutely nothing to do with our performance. It is based solely, 100% on His choice to love us no matter how badly we mess up or how broken we are.

 

God has no desire to leave us “out of order.” In His love He realigns our hearts to His. He resets and strengthens our connection to Him. However long it takes, whatever it takes, He works steadily until we are restored to full working condition, made “mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4).