Guest Blog

This Blog was written by one of our pastors, Neal McCullohs

Mathew 10:11-14

11 “Whenever you enter a city or village, search for a worthy person and stay in his home until you leave town. 12 When you enter the home, give it your blessing. 13 If it turns out to be a worthy home, let your blessing stand; if it is not, take back the blessing. 14 If any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake its dust from your feet as you leave.”

.

I’ve been brewing over this verse this week. Here are some of my thoughts. We as Christian leaders are constantly investing our lives in other people. We spend time with other Christians trying to help them to take their next step with God. We desperately want for them to step out of mediocrity and into a life of adventure and impact. Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn’t. We spend time with people that know God trying to help them find Him, or even better, commit their lives to Him. We desperately want them to know His love and forgiveness and to know His plan for their lives. No matter whom it is we are interacting with, we want them to live life to the fullest and then do eternity with God. I’ve been following God long enough now that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without God. I read communication cards and prayer request and listen to people’s lives and I get a picture of the pain and brokenness that people live with. I get a picture of the empty and hopeless lives the people around us lead. Yet no matter how empty, how broken, how hopeless and ugly life is for these people, Christians or not, sometimes “it” happens and sometimes “it” doesn’t. Sometimes their eyes are opened and they embrace God’s plan for their lives and are forever changed. Sometimes they make a turn and begin to live life with a vigor and purpose they never knew before. Sometimes though, nothing happens. Sometimes the Christian refuses to step up to the challenge. Sometimes the Christian refuses to leave a life of assumed comfort for a life of value, and meaning, and purpose, and impact. Sometimes the unbeliever refuses to admit the emptiness and loneliness they live in. Sometimes the unbeliever refuses to entertain the thought that there might be more, that the purpose of life might not just be to survive, that the purpose of life might just be bigger than themselves.

So what is our response when this happens? What are we to do when they say no thank you? Jesus told His disciples to knock the dust off their feet. Sometimes we have to let go. Sometimes we have to let people be. We have to knock the dust off our feet, leave behind any evidence that we were even there, and leave behind the emotion of fighting for those so that we can go to the next place, to the next person to fight with strength. This doesn’t mean we bad mouth them or hate them or think they are bad people. It means we invest our time and energy in people that yield return. I believe that there are some people that will say no as long as you are going after them, but if you will walk away, they will realize that they missed it and come back subtly asking you for more out of life. And with the dust off our feet, we give them another chance as if we never had their dust on our feet before.

Straight ahead,

Neal