| WORLD VIEW

 

Three years ago I stood with friends on the excavated hilltop of ancient Laodicea, famed city of the “lukewarm” church. Archaeologists have marked where streets once crisscrossed, where major public buildings rose. But almost nothing today stands above waist high. Laodicea is now mostly a collection of broken pieces of broken pieces—chunks of marble, fragments of columns, bits of timeworn building blocks.

 

I wandered away from the rest of the tour group, glad for a moment of serenity. But then I turned a corner and felt my breath catch quickly, like when you see something old and familiar in an unexpected place. For there, rising to a height of nearly eight feet, archaeologists had reconstructed an ancient doorway in Laodicea, just where it had fallen centuries ago. All the marble was intact—a giant portal framing brilliant-blue sky.

 

And I heard the words of Jesus in my heart that day as clearly as if I had been with that long-ago church to which they were once read: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20).

 

Welling up in my heart that day came a response to the Lord of change that I have prayed often in the months since then, and that I repeat as I stand on the threshold of a new year: “Yes, Lord, I open the door. Do come in—again and again. No longer stand at the door and knock, like someone uncertain of a welcome. Come in; be at home. Find Your rest. Take charge of the place. Make this heart—make this life—Your dwelling. I open the door. I choose to change.”

 

As you step into 2010, find words of your own with which to greet the Lord of change. It is His joy to dwell wherever He is welcomed, wherever He is loved, wherever He is obeyed. In this new year, may you discover the “joy of every loving heart”—“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

—Bill Knott