I know…it’s been a long time. To be honest, I haven’t felt the urgency to write anything. However, something is really stirring in my heart right now and I feel the need to share it publicly…maybe to help you like it’s helping me.
I don’t fit. I don’t fit in one of these new cookie-cutter churches…which look a lot alike but are also very effective at reaching the millennial generation. For that reason, I applaud you, am thankful for you, and pray for you. However, I also don’t feel totally comfortable squeezing myself in to that setting. On the other hand, I don’t fit inside of a traditional church either. I hate religion. I know…“it’s not religion, it’s tradition.” But it sure looks and feels a lot like religion to me. And religion sucks the life out of a person.
I don’t fit in the typical pentecostal church either (some of those people scare me, amen?)…but, then again, I don’t entirely fit out of it either. I believe the Holy Spirit offers power for living and boldness to witness to all those who will receive Him…like you receive Jesus…humbly, as servant to Lord. I also believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are as much for today as they ever were…though they don’t have to be weird. I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. For my whole life I’ve been dancing to the beat of a different drummer. I think I finally have figured out “why.”
A friend of mine was praying for me last week and as he prayed aloud for me, he said something that brought such clarity and understanding. He said that I live ‘in the tension that comes from standing near the door; I live at the nexus between wanting to be in the presence of God myself but also so badly wanting to bring someone with me.’ I never thought of that being a place of tension, but my friend nailed it. In fact, I would even go so far as to say I believe God was speaking something through him that I needed to hear (and I know my friend would agree with that). I believe God was telling me that He likes me how I am and that He was giving me permission to be comfortable in my own skin. In fact, that I could be of use to Him the way I am.
Check out this poem by Sam Shoemaker. I believe he’s the one who started the whole A.A. thing. Now I think I understand “why.” It’s called “So I Stay Near the Door”:
I stay near the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world—
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men.
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it . . .
So I stay near the door.The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door—the door to God.
The most important thing any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man’s own touch.Men die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it—live because they have found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him . . .
So I stay near the door.Go in, great saints, go all the way in—
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics—
In a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.Some must inhabit those inner rooms,
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening . . .
So I stay near the door.The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving—preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stay near the door.I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from men as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.
Where? Outside the door—
Thousands of them, millions of them.But—more important for me—
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,
So I shall stay by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
‘I had rather be a door-keeper . . .’
So I stay near the door.
I read this poem to the people of Gateway Church this past Sunday and as I got to “One of them, two of them, ten of them,” I got severely choked up (okay, okay…I started to cry). As I revisited that moment this morning as I drove into work I was praying and I questioned God, “Lord, I didn’t think I cared ‘that’ much?” I was just trying to be honest, after all, He knows my heart anyway. Then I believe I heard His response, “I care ‘that’ much and you are simply a conduit of my love.”
That’s what being a Christian is all about…not trying to do my best for Jesus, but Jesus just being Jesus through me. I am so humbled.
By the way, I think this might also explain why I like the name “Gateway” so much, after all, isn’t is just a doorway? If it appeals to you, I’m always on the lookout for people who would like to stand near the door with me.
Keeping it simple to find and follow Jesus.
Mel
Mel Steinmeyer 