Sunday, April 24, 2005

Knock, knock

I have had a persistent knocking in my heart and in my head lately. That's not right, it has been a knocking, but it has been a feeling that is tough to quantify. It started last Saturday night at work. A regular customer came into the store to pick up some books he had ordered, but they had been reshelved so I asked him to wait while I had co-worker bring them up to the front. While he waited another customer came up and had a pile of books in her hand. One of the books was my favorite book of pretty much all time:
I started talking about it with her, quickly, and Dr. Higgins, the first customer I dealt with, started looking over her shoulder. The more we talked about it the more animated she became, Dr. H started to ask a couple questions. She paid for the books and after I had put them all in a bag for her she turned around to Dr. H, took the COD out of the bag and handed it to him and said "here, you can have it" and then walked out of the store. Dr. Higgins looked at me and I at him and we had the same expression on our faces: "what just happened?"

Last night I had another customer come in to return some books. One of the books she returned was a book about the First Easter. It was published by Concordia Publishing House. She said she was returning it because, get this, she didn't "like the theology" behind it. I looked at her and said "huh?" She said "I like to think Jesus was sent to live. He wasn't sent to die." I was at work, so I felt that I was tied, but I wanted to tell her that if that had been the case there would be no Gospel message at all.

A few weeks ago I was watching the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and I heard this line: "You better take care of me, Lord. If you don't you'll have me on your hands." That struck me. Sometimes I wonder if I don't sound like that when I pray "give us this day our daily bread," does it come out more "you know, God... gimme gimme gimme..." That whole prayer gives me a tough time, sometimes. Jim's last post about "abba.... father" really got me thinking about the whole Lord's Prayer thing. I'm trying to work through it all, but its been a tough, tough thing. Its almost scary.

I'll have more to write about this I'm sure.

4 comments:

rebekah said...

i'm sure you will, too... and i'm sure i wont mind ... i still have to read that freakin' book ...

Anonymous said...

COD is a great book. What about the Neon Bible? Is it any good?
--David

jillymae said...

wow, i don't know if i could've showed such restraint, loof. i woulda had to say something. like "don't you get it? he died so we can live!" it amazes me how we miss the point so many times because the truth is so simple, and somehow we need it to be complicated.

Jason Maroney said...

knock, knock
k - your words hit home Sunday driving home and I just felt God saying "make room for me" and I remembered your blog.
we like to use God as a ladder or a big wrench. get me to where i want to be or loosen up the problem that i'm stuck on.
we suck. but still he knocks.