The Doorbell

It happens quite often. At least once a week. I will be just chillin' in my living room. Maybe enjoying the comfort of a cup of hot tea and a fuzzy afghan. Late at night. Maybe checking email on the laptop. Alone in the house. And it happens.

DING-DONG-DING-DONG.

The doorbell rings.

I stiffen instinctively and glance around. Because remember, I'm alone! Then carefully, I check the windows to see if someone is standing on the front porch. No one. I tiptoe to the back door. No one. What the heck??

This happened again last night. Now I refer to it as 'the demon doorbell.' My roomies have experienced the mystery, too. Why it rings randomly and without provocation, I do not know. But because of the ringing doorbell, I leave the comfort of my living room to patrol the house.

And you never guessed that I would relate such an odd thing to spiritual life, did you? Sometimes things come up in our lives -- trials, persecutions, the confrontation of a friend, a warning word, a sermon, random weird experiences -- and we don't understand "why"... We just hear the ringing doorbell. We are compelled to get up out of our comfort zone and check our lives. And maybe the point isn't that annoying ringing noise, but rather, the "considering our ways" which results from it. The point is not the fire, but the faith resulting from the fire.

"In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;"
1 Peter 1:6-7