It was hot, muggy, and wet Friday afternoon. I had been counseling teenagers all day and was drained and exhausted. All I wanted to do was come home, chill, and watch a documentary on birds. (Hey, don’t judge.)
As I—with both arms full of stuff—awkwardly inserted my key in the front door lock, I quickly realized that it wasn’t opening. Without thinking to try the knob, I pulled my key out of the lock and put my key ring back in my pocket. I let out an exasperated sigh as I trudged—now very wet—to the back door . . . but that door wouldn’t budge either. Our home is more than 125 years old, and naturally, stuff doesn’t always work as it should—but the locks were installed in 2010!
Ugh!
As I stood there on my back porch, wet, tired, and frustrated, I threw up a quick prayer for God’s guidance and wisdom to help me solve this problem. As quickly as that, He answered with “Call your wife.”
I immediately obeyed, and when I told her about my problem, I was rewarded by raucous laughter. After she composed herself, she informed me that my daughter hadn’t locked the front door at all . . . and that’s why our lock wouldn’t “open.” I laughed out loud as I realized that I had been trying to unlock an already-unlocked door.
Sure enough, as I returned to the front door, I gave the doorknob a gentle turn, and the door swung open, welcomingly.
As I entered my home, I continued laughing out loud and thanking God for the fact that my daughter had already done all the work for me—all I had to do was turn the knob and enter in.
There are many people in this world who are working real hard to try to gain their own salvation, but a long time ago Jesus already took care of that for us all on the cross and in the tomb (John 3:16-18).
The apostle Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2:8, 9:
“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” (NLT).
Today, make it a point to tell Jesus “Thank You” for loving you enough to ensure that you can have a forever relationship with Him. Jesus loved us enough to live a perfect life that we could never live, die a death that was supposed to be ours, and sealed the whole deal when He rose from the dead.
Jesus has already unlocked the door for us…all we have to do is open it and go in.
