As a child of nine, I remember mama
calling my older brother and me to supper. We would come running through the back
door, always stepping across the threshold, while leaving our dirty play shoes
piled on the small entrance rug. The fun
of sliding on the smooth linoleum in our stocking feet through the kitchen
became a race for the bathroom to wash up. The wonderful smells of our favorite
meals and preferred foods still linger in my thoughts today. One of my mama’s
many talents was her extraordinary cooking and baking. Everything she created
made our taste buds come alive, for her gifting was truly gastronomic splendor.
We never hesitated to cross the threshold and sit down to a delicious meal. She
called and we responded – but we had to leave our dirty shoes on the back
porch.
Mama came to know Jesus as her Lord and Savior
when I was about seven years old, after I had given my heart to God at a summer
Bible school. A local church near our home wanted my family to begin coming to
Sunday school and church meetings; so I asked my mama if we could start going.
I remember the Sunday she drove my brother and me to church, but I was saddened
that my father did not desire to go and our family was not complete. From that
time on I recall many afternoons coming in from school seeing her bedroom door
closed. Standing there outside her bedroom threshold, I could hear her talking
quietly and crying. I never disturbed her and would softly slip away. But
hearing my mama praying is a very tender remembrance in my heart today. As she
poured out her heart, somehow I could tell she had crossed over the threshold
into effective prayer.
We have many thresholds in life to step
through on our journey from childhood to maturity. Some are difficult while
others, routine. Some doorways are familiar while others can be traumatic. They
often involve change. They often involve leaving our comfort zones. As parents,
we are to train and prepare our children. This is so they will be able to make
wise choices as they approach and enter the various doorways of change in their
own lives. God expects us to do it, for His word declares it. As ‘spiritual’ parents we are to refuse the
‘natural’ tendency of fallen man,
giving place instead to hearing and yielding to the authority of God’s own Word
as our children are raised.
Being sensitive to each child’s nature in
the family, he or she must be recognized for their position of importance to
the family. Children stand waiting anxiously as their confidence develops in
finding their place of worth. Here lies the basis of relationship to God’s own
children and their worth to His Kingdom also. These thresholds are always
harder to step over into the next doorway of change but it is the difficulties
of each that build character within us for the next.
The Threshold of Change
During our second pastorate the Lord taught
me about His development of walking in grace. Father God showed me a room-like
chamber where various items sat and the walls held an assortment of objects. He
spoke of each object as a lesson to be learned as each area of the room was an
important period of time in my spiritual walk to be mastered in overcoming the
sinful nature compared to His new nature within. As I became familiar with
everything in the room, I learned something more about myself and of His
holiness. Every situation I experienced in this chamber, all the difficulties
and hardships, became my training in trusting the Father as my Provider, my
Healer, my Redeemer. In fact, my sinful nature of doubt changed into true
worship as I walked about the room very comfortably at ease, when He opened
another doorway for me to step through into a new chamber.
The Threshold of
Surrender
As I would step up to each new doorway the
thresholds became harder to step over into the next place the Lord had opened
for me to understand. As I stood at each threshold I caught a glimpse into the
next as if it were a huge field of beautiful hills and flowers fresh with
something new to accomplish. But before I entered I stood pondering my
development as the Lord spoke tenderly to me questioning my hesitation. Looking
deeply into the countryside of His splendor, I spoke quietly confessing the
fear of what He wanted, as each new doorway demanded something more of me to
rid and lay down and walk away from.
God is ever watching over His Word to
perform it and before I could move into the agreement of using His name above
all names, I had to lay down every gift and everything I had ever done in the
name of ministry, standing completely stripped of what I became comfortable
with from all the rooms before. I could not enter the next one with all the
self-confidence and accomplishments of the previous.
God’s delight is the confidence that will
shine within His people but we must realize God only honors devotion that is
accompanied by surrendering obedience and I had to allow the Father to give
back the areas of ministering gifts that I had become too contented with. For
at this next threshold, I stood as nothing, completely naked as myself and He
was to become everything working through me or I could advance no further in
His holiness.
The Final Threshold
My mama passed on to heaven earlier this
year, so I travel back home as often as I can to be with my father. We talk a
lot about mama and what a wonderful woman she was. My parents were married over
sixty-five years, and it helps both of us to continue moving through missing
her presence. Walking through the difficult circumstances of Alzheimer’s helped
develop in me the virtue of compassion. It was a threshold for me.
God
prepares doorways to those He calls. The hard tasks and difficult situations
they may encounter in life are designed, as their part in the Family of God
according to His purpose. Are you standing at a threshold looking forward but
unable to focus on the end because of all the demands of holiness? We as
children of God are learners by the Holy Spirit, for it is the grace of God
alone that turns us into children who will step across each threshold He places
before us, being trained for His Glory. And finally, at our journey’s end,
imagine the thrill of sliding on the clouds with Jesus in our stocking feet
through the heavens to go wash-up and prepare for the marriage supper of the
Lamb after we step through the final threshold into the countryside of heaven.
