I wish I could remember the person’s name and the radio station I was listening too, so I can give proper credit. However, I do not.
The woman on the radio station was telling a story about how God had talked to her. In this story, the woman’s child woke up earlier than normal and upset her daily routine. The woman, aka mom, was upset. She wanted to read her Bible and this caused her to not be able to accomplish her task. Then she heard from God, put down the Bible and just stop reading it. She was shocked, that is when God told her that He wants a relationship. Reading the Bible for the sake of reading the Bible is like going to the gym and that is not what it is supposed to be about. Instead, “Invite Me In!”, and go to your child so you can both come to know Me.
This story made me think of an incident I had Saturday with my family. My wife and son were listening to a webcast. They are both in a network marketing business and this particular webcast was supposed to be helping them. I came in and sat down and heard the main speaker and my blood started to boil. For a person that claimed to be Christian, he just seemed hateful in the last few minutes. Then he said this “If you do not find value in this, then you are the type of person that will not find value in anything.” Now that may not be 100% what he said, but that is pretty close.
I immediately got angry. Probably, one of the angriest moments I have ever had. I find no value in most of the meetings my wife and son attend. It is a way to glorify these people who have been successful and I find that to be along the lines of idolatry. Furthermore, the information they provide is so convoluted that it is useless. After this comment, I banned this person from ever coming into our house again. This upset my wife and she was contemplating leaving, but I asked her if it was God’s will that she be in this business. She replied yes, then I said it does not matter how upset I am, you need to stay in. If you know women, she was ready to leave because she cannot separate this from her everyday life and was afraid it would cause us problems. I assured her it would not, but it really did not matter to her because she did not believe it. We reconciled the issue as we talked about the incident.
What got me thinking was when God told this mom to “Invite Me In!”. Did I have a right to get mad? Yes, but I do not own anything. In other words, God owns everything and is allowing me to temporarily use these items. As the old saying goes, you cannot take it with you. There are also several verses in the Bible about storing up treasures on Earth and you can go search them if you are interested. So if I do not own the things, then who am I to tell a person that they cannot enter the house where I live if that is God’s will for them. We are all God’s children and we need to not only invite God into our homes, but other people as well.