At the Door

Everybody knows the painting: a lamp, a robe, a door with no handle on the outside, a man waiting on the step. It has hung in church halls for a century over a caption about the sinner's heart, and people have come to Christ through it, so make the complaint carefully. The letter this sentence comes from is addressed to a congregation, by name, and read out to them.

Laodicea had money, enough to rebuild after an earthquake without imperial help. The letter quotes the church's own estimate of itself back at it: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. Then the correction, five adjectives long: and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Everything offered next is something they believed they had. Gold tried in the fire, white raiment, eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

Read verse nineteen first, because it sets the tone of the knocking. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Then: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.

Somebody stands outside a church with a full building and a healthy account, waiting to be let in. There is an echo behind the knock. Luke has servants told to be like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. The Song of Solomon has a woman half asleep: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh. Both times the household is at home, and it is night.

So the question concerns a room you are already sitting in. How long has it been going on, and what has been going well enough that nobody heard it?

Do not answer it about anyone else in the building. Stay where you are a few minutes and say nothing at all.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 115 is Faithful Even When (2 Timothy 2:13).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two