Monday, January 6, 2014

Walk In And Be Thankful

On the back of a quarter of a letter from the University of Kansas health care outreach department, talking in part about a dinner for professionals to share their knowledge and experience, I find this prayer:

Enter HIS gates with thanksgiving, and HIS courts with praise! Give thanks to HIM, bless HIS name! For THE LORD is good; HIS steadfast love endures forever and HIS faithfulness to all generations.

My old-school historic imagination sees the Kingdom of GOD as this gigantic castle with a small, narrow gate (Matthew 7:13). No moat. No drawbridge. No archers in the turrets. Just a gate, and a decision whether or not to go through. It looks like it's too small to be the real entrance, not for something so large and beautiful. So people think that's a service door, or a closet, or an entrance to nowhere.

I remember going through a narrow door and how it led me to the Kingdom of GOD. Inside I found the Royal Court, welcoming me and wanting to share its love and joy with a person still carrying around the weight of the past. Mind you, going through that narrow gate has not been without pain or temptations or hard decisions to leave what used to bring me pleasure behind. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.

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