The only sound I hear this evening is my dog snoring. It’s not a harsh raspy snore. It’s a very soft gentle sound that says, “I like it here. I feel safe here.” She is curled up about a foot or so from my desk and her snore is music. It’s a totally different sound than when the mailman comes. I don’t know why she hates the mailman. She hears his truck two mailboxes away and starts to growl. By the time he arrives she is often in a frenzy that instantly dies the moment he pulls away. She looks at me as if to say, “There. I saved you one more time.”
I have heard those words before. I have heard them innumerable times from Jesus. “There.” He says to me, “I saved you one.” (He doesn’t say “one more time.” He doesn’t rub it in.) The problem isn’t Him throwing me out of the Kingdom. It’s me drifting away and suddenly waking up to my need to come home again. Then it is that I hear, “There. I saved you.”
Will He ever stop? No. The issue is me making Him say it. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to leave you with the idea that He is capricious. He is so stable. I also don’t want to give the idea that heaven has a revolving door. Not at all. It’s a solid place. I don’t believe every time I disappointment Him He throws me out. He would be a horrible Savior if that happened. It isn’t a matter of individual acts. It is a condition of my not caring and my getting so focused on other things that I am the one who opened the door and left. The wonder is, like my dog, He is always there to save me from the mailman.
Written by Roger Bothwell on January 25, 2012
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwel.org