Open the Door!...Please? Getting EXCITED about Advent (Quietly)

So imagine Jesus comes to pay you a visit

Expecting His knock at the door you begin to panic

Then He approaches, He knocks...

You don't answer.

So He waits...and waits...

and waits.

Why is it so hard sometimes to let the Lord into our lives, our hearts?

Why do we make God wait? Why do we keep Him locked out?

God - if He is not already on the inside of our hearts - will occasionally knock

He'll occasionally call out to us through the closed door, "Can I come in, please?"

But He's greeted with silence.

Silence is dangerous.  Silence is like a vacuum which longs to be filled.  That vacuum can be filled with the same old lies we cling to which have come to us from others, it can be filled with our own thoughts and imaginings (Heaven forbid we be full of ourselvds!) or it can be filled with the truth - God can speak into our silence.

Whose voice do you tend to listen to? What do you believe about yourself, your life, the world, religion, humanity's destiny etc.?  What fills the silence in you?

We all, after all, have to learn the truth.  A student needs to receive his lesson from the teacher and, in order to do that, he must remain silent while the teacher speaks.  The student could, of course, choose not to listen thus filling his own silence with his own thoughts.  That's dangerous if the truth is trying to be communicated.

In our world we are very wary of teachers.  We hesitate to give ourselves over totally, we hold back, we're not sure if we can trust everything we're told.  That can be appropriate sometimes with other human beings.  We do need to filter and evaluate what we're told from time to time because we can't be naive and ought not believe everything we hear.

But that can be so tiring in the spiritual life. Yes, we need to be on guard spiritually since not all spiritual insights that come to us are from God.  Sometimes religious teachers "get it wrong" or well meaning friends can be in error on something.  So where can we turn for sound, infallible truth about the most important (and frankly, most interesting) questions in life?

Is there anyone (or anything) which we can allow into the door of our hearts and simply drink in what we are told?  Sounds dangerous - I know - especially since many of us have often before been burned and we're tired of putting out the painful flames.

Isn't there anyone that we can allow access to the deepest parts of our hearts in order to learn the truth? Well, judging from the title of my post and the first few lines I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this.

But you'll have to wait for part II where we'll discuss more deeply how we can let God into our lives; even into the darkest, deepest, most silent corners of our hearts.

It is into that silence which Christ wants to descend.  The Word stands outside our doors anticipating to echo His truth and love through the halls of our hearts. 

 We are, after all, approaching Advent which is a season of waiting, of patient expectation.  We remain in joyful hope of Christ's coming in a new way into our lives.

Maybe this year we'll finally open the door to the Lord once and for all.

That is, I think, Jesus' joyful hope at least.

(to be continued...)

-MM