The Inviting God

Published by christi on May 14, 2020May 14, 2020

Amidst the ‘occupant’ mail and the grocery sale ads sometimes there will be a handwritten envelope, formally addressed, sometimes with a fancy seal…I know what it is. An invitation! Even if I am expecting it, the embossed folder within is still welcome! I love to be remembered, and am honored to be included on the guest list of a graduate or a bride-to-be, even if I know I can’t come. (Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina are a long way from where I live.)

Papa-God gives us invitations, too. “Come,” they often start.

All who are thirsty: Come.

Come, let us reason together.

All is now ready. Come.

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden.

Come and drink the water of life without charge.

Sometimes the wording is different…like when God approaches 99-year-old Abram with an invitation to a contractual agreement. “Walk before me and be blameless.”  Whoa! Like he can do that. He’s already messed things up: trying to pass his wife off as his sister, making sketchy, but culturally acceptable, arrangements to help God keep His promise to provide an heir for Abe’s considerable fortune. How’s he going to pull this one off? Blameless? I don’t think so!

What at first sounds like another impossible command is actually an invitation. I was curious about whether it was a command, so I called a local rabbi.

Abram was not being commanded. He is being invited.

The word used is not as strong as an imperative, like a “thou shalt;” instead God, the All-Powerful Speaker-into-Existence of the Universe is inviting Abram to take a walk with Him, to pursue relationship with Him by spending time face-to-face (That’s what “before” implies.) and the result is becoming whole. (The word blameless is less a moral assessment than a personality trait.) God is inviting Abe to become integrated, all-of-a-piece, mind-soul-spirit-body all devoted to the same thing, all going the same direction, all operating on a single premise: the Eternal Creator of Heaven and Earth wants me to live, eat, breathe, sleep with Him… every day in the everyday…

And the more I do, the more whole I become. What an invitation! He just wants me to be in a close relationship with Him, and He will do for me what I have always wanted!

I’m a-comin’!!! Will you join me? You’re invited!

Christi

P.S. The slug infestation has diminished markedly. And I even dug a few potatoes up from where the decimated plants had been!