A thought by Bob Goff from his book, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People (p. 43). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
I love Disneyland and I love my Mickey watch.
Bob says, “The windows in the second-story shops are dedicated to people who helped build the kingdom there. At Disneyland in Southern California, I found a window across from the Jungle Cruise for a guy named Harper Goff. He’s not related to me at all, but that’s not what I tell the people who sell tickets to get in. The window says, ‘Prof. Harper Goff—Banjo Lessons.’ But banjo isn’t what he’ll be remembered for. You see, Harper Goff has a window at Disneyland because he helped build a kingdom there.”
Bob goes on, “Here’s the question I keep asking myself: What do I want my window to say? This question is worth thinking about even if you don’t know the answer. What part are you going to play in building the kind of kingdom Jesus said would outlast us all?”
Good question. He continues, “We have a lodge up in Canada. It’s a tradition we’ve had for decades that everyone who comes to visit us climbs under the dining room table to sign it and leave a word behind. One of my friends, Don, left the word With on the bottom of the table. We’ve had leaders and ambassadors and ministers of foreign affairs and elementary school kids sign under our table and leave a word. We’ve had good guys and bad guys and undecided do the same. We’ve had rockers and poets and Supreme Court justices and moviemakers climb under the table. We’ve had people whose countries were rolling tanks against each other climb under together with pens and leave their words. One of the many reasons Don has been so influential in my life is that he taught me the importance of being ‘with’ each other.
“I don’t know what God would put on His table if He had one. I don’t think He’d want to have it read like a poem or look like a painting. I think He would just want it to say ‘With.’ He wouldn’t need a twenty-dollar phrase or a thirty-word Bible verse. He demonstrated the word with is much bigger and worthier and more accessible than any ten Bible verses. It also doesn’t rhyme with anything, which is a plus. It doesn’t sound like a big theological statement, because it’s not. It’s a huge theological statement. It’s God’s purpose for us. It’s the reason Jesus came. It’s the whole Bible in a word. People who are becoming love are with those who are hurting and help them get home. I’ve always thought that people who didn’t want to be with people here are going to hate heaven. Truly, it will be everybody, always there.”
Do you see how God connects the What and the With in our doing His purpose? Do you see and will you do?
Yes, yes!
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