I love the story in the previous blog post—because of its happy ending, to be sure—but also because it illustrates many of the things in which I believe strongly. If the household of God is real, people will want to be a part of it: “By this shall they know you are my disciples, in that you love one another.”
And, if we learn to open our homes and our lives, we can draw to Him those who live across the hall, or who share our parking spot, or who own the farm across the pasture, or who check our groceries at the store. We can learn to employ all the common incidents of living for His favor.
“Can you come help me eat the pie left over from dessert?”
“Let’s can applesauce together.”
“Darryl’has extra tickets to the ball game. Can you and the kids come?”
“We just bought a pool table. How ’bout a game?”
Then, at night we can think about those who are in the darkness, hungry for bread and thirsty for water, longing for crimson robes and glistening garments, searching for a song, waiting at the gates. We can pray that He will help us to hear their cries, to see their longing, to invite them to come into our rooms, our lives, our wonderful and fine and beautiful household of faith.
Life Response
- Try my prayer exercise for falling asleep. Each night begin to pray for the people who live around you. Pray up and down the block, through the units of your apartment building, or through the individual rooms in the dormitory. Start the next night where you left off the night before.
- Record in a notebook the ways the Lord answers your prayers. This method is a good way to sensitize ourselves to the fact that He is truly working in our lives.
————————————————————————————–
For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.
Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.
An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.
Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.
In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
