Knock Knock Knock, Anyone Home?

Over the next few writings, I will be telling pieces of my story. Not to put focus on me, but to point us to God. A God who is madly in love with every one of us. A God who made us in his image. A God who pursues every one of us and wants to be in intimate relationship with us.

Allow me to provide some background and context. I have a speech impediment that for much of my life felt like a weight around my neck. I allowed it to define me – broken, and since the speech impediment continued, seemingly unfixable. According to me, my value, or lack thereof, was determined and defined by imperfect speech patterns. Whether at home or in the public space, I felt very self-conscious anytime I talked. Internally I cringed every time I talked. It would take an act of God and an earthquake to get me to want to be as public speaker. More on that in the next writing.

I grew up going to church regularly (late 1950s through early 70s). Looking back, I sense our going to church was more about the “acceptable societal thing to do” more so than it was about growing in our relationship with God or building community with other believers. The churches we attended were traditional mainline ones.

My remembrance is that the preachers talked more about the do’s and don’ts of “good clean living” and less about committing oneself to Jesus, letting him change us from the inside. I was baptized as a small boy, went through confirmation class in seventh grade, received giving envelopes, threw a few bucks in the offering plate from time to time, and “didn’t drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do.” So, in my mind, and from what I interpreted all this to mean, I was a “good” Christian. Whatever a Christian was.

Fast forward to my sophomore year in college (1977). I started dating a hot girl and early in the relationship she asked if I was a Christian. Without hesitation, I said yes. I was lying to her but didn’t know I was lying (refer back to the last paragraph). I am sure I would have said yes to her question regardless. I wanted to date her and was smart enough to know that my answer would probably determine whether or not this budding relationship had hope or would end right then and there. We never had another discussion about this and eventually got married in 1983.

Roll the tape even further and it takes us to early 1986. I began attending a series of men’s luncheons with a newly hired co-worker. These were meetings with food, fellowship, and a man sharing his testimony. I began hearing something new and strange sounding. Something about being “born again” by committing my life to Jesus Christ. God was pricking my tender heart and in the summer of that year, I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. I had no clue what that actually meant but I knew at that moment that I needed Jesus in my life. Honestly, if I knew at that moment the ways God wanted to use me in years to come, I would have most likely bailed immediately. Oh, and I should mention that I believe God put this co-worker in my path for the sole purpose of pointing me to Christ – within weeks of my faith commitment he left the company.

For about the next nine years, I began to grow in head knowledge of what a life walking with Jesus looked like, but it wasn’t until May 1995 that it moved from my head to my heart, from intellectual to experiential. That story is next. Stay tuned.

I was not looking for God. Yet, God was still actively pursuing me.

In Isaiah 64, the unrepentant Israelites pray an impassioned prayer to God, through the prophet, crying out for his mercy. God begins his reply by telling the people that he permitted himself to be sought and found (Isaiah 65:1-5). The problem was with them, not with God. Then, in Romans 10, the apostle Paul applies those same verses to the Gentiles (v.20 – those not seeking) and the Jews (v. 21 – those who did not ask for him, i.e., unrepentant). I believe God making himself available to us is still his mode of operandi today. 

In the last book in the Bible, Revelation, after rebuking the church in Laodicea for being lukewarm (3:14-29), Jesus, speaking through John, extends an invitation to dine with him – “Listen! I stand at the door and knock; if any hear my voice and open the door, I will come into their house and eat with them, and they will eat with me” (3:20, GNT). That same “dinner date” invitation is extended to us today.

Ending as I began, why do I share all this? Certainly not to show my spiritual strength or awareness. For much of my life, I was both blind and ignorant to God’s relentless pursuit. Yet, in his great love for me, he knocked and knocked and knocked, patiently waiting for me to open the door. He is doing the same for you right now! Will you, maybe for the first time, open the door? Or, if you opened in the past but have sort of pushed Jesus out, will you open it again?

Note: This painting, The Light of the World, by William Holman Hunt, depicts Jesus knocking on an overgrown and long-unopened door. Notice the door has no handle and, thus, can only be opened from the inside.

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