A
Message from Steve
|
A
Message from Steve |
One
thing that all Christians have in common is we all acknowledge that no matter
where we are on our walk with God, we will always have more to learn and there
will always be room for improvement in our relationship with our Saviour.
It is also true that all of us will struggle at sometime with different
aspects of our faith; for example, some of us will think that we are no good at
praying because we don’t know how to do it properly.
Some of us will think that we are no good at hearing God speak to us
because we don’t know how to do it, some of us will think that we are no good
at ‘keeping our eyes on God all the time’ because we don’t know how to do
it, and I could go on and on because there will always be someone struggling
with some aspect of their relationship with God.
Feeling like this can be a good thing if it drives us to seek to improve
ourselves in whatever area we feel we need improvement in, but before we seek to
improve ourselves we need to ask ourselves the question “ do I really need to
improve at all?”.
The
trouble with some of us is that we (me included) are guilty of looking at other
Christians who we perceive are closer to God than we are and therefore are
better Christians than us, and judging ourselves accordingly, using them and
where they are as a benchmark.
We conclude, sometimes wrongly, that we need improvement because we are
not as good as them, when the reality could well be that God does not intend us
to be as good as them, and that we are where God wants us to be at the moment.
The passage below written by Samuel Moor Shoemaker really put things into
perspective for me when I read it so, I would like you all to read it through
prayerfully as often as you like, and see if God speaks to you through it as he
did me.
‘I
stand by the door, I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out; the door is
the most important door in the world - it is the door through which people walk
when they find God. There’s
no use my going way inside and staying there, when so many are still outside and
they, as much as I, crave to know where the door is, and all that many ever find
is only a wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind people, with outstretched, groping
hands, and feeling for a door. Knowing there must be a door. Yet they never find
it ….. So I stand by the door.
‘The
most tremendous thing in the world is for people to find that door – the door
to God, and the most important thing any person can do is to take hold of those
blind, groping hands, and put them on the latch – the latch that only clicks
and opens to the person’s own touch.
People die outside that door, as starving beggars die, on cold nights in
cruel cities in the dead of winter, die for want of what is within their grasp.
Others live, on the other side of it – live because they have found it,
and opened it, and walked in and found him...so I stand by the door.
‘Go in great saints, go all the way in, go way down into the cavernous cellars, away up into the spacious attics – it is a vast roomy house, this house where God is. Go into the deepest hidden casements of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood. Some must inhabit those inner rooms and know the depth and heights of God, and call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is. Sometimes I take a deeper look in, sometimes I venture in a little farther; but my place seems closer to the opening…. So I stand by the door.
‘There
is another reason why I stand there. Some
people get part way in and become afraid lest God and the zeal of his house
devour them; for God is so very great, and asks all of us, and these people way
inside only terrify them more. Somebody
must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled for the old life, they
have seen too much. One taste of
God, and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened who seek to sneak out just
where they came in, to tell them how much better it is inside. The people too
far in do not see how near these are to leaving – preoccupied with the wonder
of it all. Somebody must be
watching for those who have entered the door but would like to run away, so for
them too….,I stand by the door.
‘I
admire the people who go way in, but I wish they would not forget how it was
before they got in. then they would be able to help the people who have not yet
even found the door, or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply, and stay too long, and forget the people
outside the door. As
for me, I shall take my old accustomed place, near enough to God and hear him,
and know he is there, but not so far from others as to hear them and remember
they are there too. Where?
Outside the door, thousands of them, millions of them.
But – more importantly for me – one of them, two of them, ten of them
whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait for those who seek it.
I had rather be a doorkeeper …..!
So I stand by the door.’
The
one beautiful thing about being a Christian is that we should be able to accept
that we are who we are because God made us like that, and we are where we are in
our walk with him because he wants us to be where we are at the moment.
Instead of looking to other Christians and judging ourselves by where
they are we need to enjoy being who we are and where we are at the moment safe,
in the knowledge that as we keep our eyes on God and are obedient to him, as
best we can, he will progress us as and when he knows we are ready.
So the word for us all this month is, be happy with who we are and where
we are, because we are where God wants us to be.
God
bless
Steve
Waters