Neither “Too Bad” Nor “Too Good”
Folks in retirement facilities are most creative in decorating their front doors. From handmade wreathes to colorful framed messages, you can get a good look at a person by what is put on the front door. The other day I can across this message:
“You are not too bad to come in; Or too good to stay out.”
CONSIDER how that tells us a lot about the person behind the door. Without ever meeting her, I could tell she was a loving and forgiving person; the kind you would want for a friend especially when you really messed up. No matter how bad things would get, she’d be there with open arms and a forgiving spirit.
However, she is also a person who has little use for, as Paul would say, a “puffed up spirit.” She’s a little uncomfortable with the spirit that feels a little bit better off than the rest and no longer in need of coming in. The person too busy, too self-sufficient, and too important to need what the other folks need. Her message to such a person: no one is that “too good!” Certainly as much, perhaps even more, the “too good” needs to come in as the “too bad” needs to know he can come in. Nevertheless, both need to know that her door is open to all people. All are welcome in her home.
Leaving the retirement home, I CONSIDERED how that message should be on the front of all God’s places of worship. These are places where no one is ever “too bad” to come in or “too good” to come in. It is a place for all people, needed by all people; regardless of what people do or don’t do or how they may feel about themselves on any given day, the “too good” to be humbled and sense their need of the eternal God and the “too bad” to receive God’s love and forgiveness.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16 & 17)
Wendell Mettey
10-10-1988
Revised 3-2013
