✎ Imagine you have moved to a beautiful beach front home on the Pacific coast (we’re using our imagination, so you may as well have your dream house). The movers have just left and you are faced with the daunting task of getting settled in. That’s when the phone rings. I call and say, “Hey, I’m coming to see you and your new home.” Just what you wanted was company right? Well you want to make a good impression so you try to organize a few boxes, but you’re tired from the big move and you fall asleep. Morning comes and you realize you must have missed me. The phone rings again; its me “I’m on the way, and will be there soon.” Click. Again you start unpacking boxes to make some sense of things; you wouldn’t want me to see your house so disorganized. The day comes and goes, but I never arrive. Morning again comes and I call again, “Hey I’m on the way over; I’ll see you soon.” You think to yourself, “Right that’s what you told me before,” but you tell me you’re looking forward to seeing me. Again you work on getting more boxes unpacked and things put away. This continues for a week. On the eighth morning I call again; by now you’ve stopped using your alarm clock because I’m calling you every morning. Again I tell you, “I’m on my way over to your new house; I can’t wait to see you. I’ll be there soon!” You’re thinking “yea, and Christmas is coming too!” Today you decide that everything in the house is finally put away and you’re not going to just sit around and wait for me to come. You’ve been waiting for me to come for a week and I haven’t showed up yet; today you’re going to finally go out and enjoy the beach. As the sun sets into the Pacific you walk back up to your house and find a note taped to the door. It says, “Drove eight days to get here, but you weren’t home. Sorry I missed you! Pastor.”
Right from the start I was actively coming to see you. My overnight stay in Cincinnati, Kansas City, Denver, Las Vegas, or any other city along the way did not prevent me from coming. It takes awhile to drive from Ohio to California, but I was getting closer all the time!