Making the right contact

An introduction goes a long way in the business world, doesn't it? Make that right contact and the doors will open to new opportunities and greater potential for your career. The moment the contact is made, the things set in motion may not be fully known, but the momentum has begun. My dad was a great one at making contacts in the business world. He could connect with people like no other - all with what appeared to be the greatest of ease. He was just comfortable in his own skin and he let others be comfortable in theirs! There is one connection we all can make that helps us beyond measure - it is the contact we make with the one and only Son of God. Without that contact, the doors we need opened won't be opened!

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. John 3:16 MSG

A whole and lasting life is opened when we make that contact, but I wonder if we recognize the full potential of that life? Just as with that business contact we might make, we probably have not real idea of just how far we will go, or how great that influence will be in our lives. We might have a niggling of an idea - that it will the 'best move ever' for us - but do we really recognize all that is accomplished by saying "yes" to Jesus - by making that contact? Not likely. Our minds are probably not able to handle it! We just cannot contain the goodness prepared for those who will take that first step into relationship with him.

I noted that my dad had a way of allowing people to be comfortable in their own skin. There was just a way he had about him of setting you at ease. I remember always feeling so free to be just who I was with my dad. There was no need for pretense - he gave me room to be just who I was. Our heavenly Father isn't any different. He is quite willing to allow us to be just who we are - no pretense, no pointing an accusing finger, no disapproving eye. He loves us just as we are - complete with all those imperfections we might refer to as our 'character' - or those things that really make us 'characters'!

Trust is a hard thing, but when a door has been opened for us, do we see it as an opportunity we don't want to miss out on, or as something to be feared. Many times we see an open door and just blindly walk in. I have explored little shops housed within old houses, filled with all manner of antiques and things from yesteryear. I might just find that one rooms leads to the next and then the next and the next. There have been times when I don't see the sign for 'employees only' beyond a certain point - all because there was an open door. I get so caught up in the exploration and I miss the sign.

There are times when we go through open doors quite freely, in an almost 'blind trust', while we resist these open doors at others. God opens doors for us - asking us to pass through those doors with something more than 'blind trust'. He asks for a 'loving trust'. That was the kind of trust I knew with my dad - a loving trust - the kind that made me free to be exactly who I was when I was around him. I didn't have to impress him - he already loved me! God already loves us and he encourages us to be just who we are around him. He doesn't just invite us through an open door - he has prepared all manner of goodness beyond that open door - and it is specifically for us! We enter in by making the right contact - saying "yes" to Jesus. Just sayin!