Put Out the Welcome Mat for God

Denny always dreaded the day when he had to visit his Aunt Sibyl. Her home was filled with expensive antiques. Denny called the stuff "junk," but he never let Aunt Sibyl hear him say it.

All the time he was in her house he was constantly being warned: "Denny, be careful, don't touch that!" So the boy was miserable for fear he might just touch the wrong thing and break it.

Don't we have corners, though, that we rope off in our lives and try to keep God from touching them? Sounds impossible, doesn't it? But maybe we do have some things in this "house" that we call our self where we would rather not have God come too near. There are just some things that we do and think that we know God would not approve of. Then there are some other corners where God would be perfectly welcome, but we fail to invite him.

Of course, we put out the "Welcome Mat" for him on Sunday at church school, morning worship, and our youth group meetings. But how about those wide open spaces in between times? After we've sung the hymns, read the Scriptures, and made our sentence prayers, we think we've done all we need to for him and forget about him on the way home.

Do we welcome God onto the playground at school? Do we ask him to sit beside us while we're taking an exam? Do we invite him to join us in our conversation when we discuss someone we don't like? Our house begins to look like Aunt Sibyl's, doesn't it?

God should be welcome in every nook and cranny of our lives. If some part of our life is untouched by God, that life is not complete. Throw open all the doors to God.