We have a hairy woodpecker in our yard that deserves to be reported to the National Audubon Society as an endangered individual. He must think it’s Halloween because all morning he has been knocking on my back door and flying away when I answer. No sooner do I sit down than he is back knocking, knocking, knocking. It was cute the first two or three times but really enough is enough. I feel like I am trapped inside an Edgar Allan Poe poem. “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.” We can call this one, “The Woodpecker.”
Jesus said, “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” However, quite to the contrary He doesn’t run away when we answer. But He is just as, or even more so, persistent as our woodpecker. He never had to chase me. I have loved Jesus as long as I can remember, but I have known persons who were persistently chased, courted, harassed and beleaguered by the Holy Spirit, who would not let them go.
Just before His death Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives looking over Jerusalem and He mourned, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” The truth is we are loved and God is just not willing for us to perish. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” II Peter 3:9.
And so He continually knocks, raps, taps at the front door, side door and backdoor of our hearts. He really wants in and will never fly away.
Spring Of Life