Moth to Flame

Stuart is in and out these days. New job. Lots of travel. I am intentional about enjoying the time while it passes instead of counting the minutes. We look for shooting stars, go to the movies, camp in the backyard. Six of us in a four man tent. I read aloud by flashlight and a moth flutters to the light. Faith flutters to the moth, tripping over heads and legs, a hypnotic look in her eye. She falls down laughing. We laugh too.

And the next morning, we sit in a row, new Bibles in our laps, highlighters in hand outlining the Roman road. Good for the kids to know the verses that define their faith. But the reason for this? Next week we are to take these shiny Bibles and hit the streets during the church hour... ring doorbells and flash highlighted words at unsuspecting residents. A sneaky plan. Who would suspect a Baptist at their door on a Sunday during the church hour? We shift in our chairs and squirm through the altar call and bolt for the door at the last amen.

The weather declares a picnic so the kids and I zip through the store and collect up the goods. We sit at a high table with low seats in the park like Gulliver in Brobdingnag. "So are we going next week, Mom?"

"What do you think about it?" I ask the asker.

"I don't think we should. I think we will be barging in uninvited. It's rude."

I might be a heretic because I agreed. "No, we'll have church at home next week." Door-to-door evangalism and arm twisting altar calls step on the toes of graciousness and good manners. Once I did this. Once I sat in the dark on the lawn and told a friend that she would go to hell if she didn't have Jesus. She didn't start the conversation. She didn't ask for this information. I offered it free of charge, all righteous-like. I still blush when I replay the scene. How did I dare?

I know how. I used to think that I could strong arm people to believe the way I believe. A clever argument and a few words from the Word and voila`...another name added to God's big book. Silly girl.

Silly girl. You cannot drag people to me. They have to want to come. Do you not know that it is I who raise the dead? I take a dead heart and breathe life into it. Pray for life! Pray that I supply the want.

So we do. Mornings around the Bible we pray for those we know and love. We pray for life, eternal life to be whispered into hearts. We live our lives in the Light and I write bits of our story and this everyday living is our invitation. For me, this is enough. Notes slipped, now and then, to my inbox confirm that this quiet way works and I am always amazed. This matters, this living consistantly with gentleness and humility, because you never know who, like the moth, might be attracted to the light.