Tuesday, February 22, 2011

KNOCK, KNOCK...

'Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.'
-Jesus of Nazareth

'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.'
-God





Do me a favor and take a few minutes to look over the picture. I realize it's not the picture many have seen, but many of us have seen a similar picture of Jesus standing at the door...

The reason I picked this particular picture was to illustrate something that is usually missed or overlooked-especially when compared to other versions of Jesus standing at the door knocking...so, what do you see? You see Jesus, holding a lamp, knocking on the door-do you notice something 'missing' on the door? Do you notice something crowding the door?

I will ease your suspense if you haven't already caught it: there is no handle on the outside of the door and there are weeds and other plant life crowding it. When the painter panted this picture he was told he messed up-that he had forgotten the door handle on the outside, but that wasn't the case. He knew all too well that he had done...for as the scripture says: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in...'

So lets think about this for a second...what does that mean? Well for many of us it means that we miss the point too-that we've assumed too much in life and about Christ. I think many of us assume that if we think warm and fuzzy thoughts about Jesus that he will make things all better. While there is truth to that, we forget that it means really letting Jesus in. It means that we need to stop demoting Jesus to the 'side seat driver' and that it is us who need to stop driving.

Many of us struggle when it comes to our prayer life. We neglect certain aspects of this discipline and have often shuffled it off to 'prayer before bed time'. Now, that's not to say that I haven't done it or that I don't do it...but why is it that God is so important to us...yet not? How is it that we want to get married in a church-in front of family, friends, and God? Why is it that when we go through Confirmation, it involves family, friends, and God? Why is it that God is important in our lives, but not important enough to have him apart of all of our lives?

On Sunday's we attend church, but forget to worship, go to Sunday School, but fail to let anything we learn take hold in our everyday lives...we 'show' that God is important to all the 'right people,' but not our God. God spoke of his people to the prophet Isaiah and lamented: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.'

Have we become so dry that we forget to worship? Does our cup overflow anymore? Is there joy in what we say and do? Or is there more fingerpointing and judgment among us? Jesus is knocking and I fear that we've become too busy to hear his call. Especially in our times of need...we feel as though we're so far away from him that we forget to let it go and let him in...

My challenge is for you to figure out what that 'it' is for you...what is 'it' that is seemingly separating you from the peace and joy that passes all understanding? What sin or burden do you carry from your past or carry for someone, but fear it's too much? You're not alone for Jesus is knocking...