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Come

            “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

“We ought to get together for coffee sometime.”

“Come see me.”

Invitations. We get them. We give them. And “everyone knows” they aren’t meant. Oh yeah, sure, if we show up (or they show up) everyone will be polite, but everyone knows everyone involved would be so much happier if neither we nor they knocked at the door. And it’s even worse if someone comes along who can’t seem to open his mouth without complaining. Yeah, if you want to come over to hand me half of the million bucks you just won, feel free!

The first problem is that “everyone knows” is fallacious unless you have talked to everyone in the world, and they all tell you they know the invitation isn’t meant. There are people who like people to drop in. In fact, I’ve read statistics that suggest between 25 to 50% of the population prefer to have people around. People energize them. But we make assumptions and leap to conclusions about what other people think, usually based on our own preferences. In a similar way, we are likely to project onto God our sense of anxiety or distaste at the idea of someone dropping by, in spite of His repeated invitations.

What makes it worse in a way is the fact that today’s invitation is made to those who are weary and heavy-laden. Oh, that describes us to a Tee. But the last person we want showing up at our door is someone who is tired, overwhelmed, stressed-out, cranky, not feeling well or worse yet, actually ill, needy, hopeless, discouraged, failing for the nine million, four hundred seventy-six thousand, two hundred and fourteenth time, or falling into or out of love for the twenty-second time in the past year. We almost expect to hear God say, “Oh no, not again.”

But God doesn’t do that. Somehow, in a way we can’t understand, He can be alone in the universe with us. He can have all His calls held, and listen as though our concerns not only matter, but aren’t the broken record of humanity and our lives. After all, love is patient, and God is love. 

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