Wood Knocks

As I lay in my bed the night of the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, crying out to God in prayer, my soul wept. In my frustrated prayers, I asked God to give me the words to pray, to send me a word to share with others in light of that day's decision by the Supreme Court of America. I asked for His words because my own words simply would not do, because my own words would be fueled by my emotions and the Body of Christ can never use words like that to truly represent God. Those kind of words will always do more harm than good, no matter how well-intentioned. I lay there for an hour, praying, waiting, tossing and turning, finally falling into frustrated sleep.
At around 2 a.m. I was roused from sleep by my 4 month old's foot in my ear, demanding her first feeding of the night. Half-in and half-out of sleep, someone was telling me over and over, "Wood knocks." 

I often ask for God to send me a word to share with others, something to guide or encourage the Body of Christ, and am usually greeted by silence. I am okay with that because on the rare occasions that I do receive a word from our Father makes years of asking and that one brief moment of receiving, totally worth it.
 
So that night I got, "wood knocks." At first I didn't understand, thinking, "God what does that mean?" That's not what I was expecting, I was expecting something profound, something earth shattering. But one thing I have learned when dealing with God is that 99.9% of the time, it will never be what you are expecting, but 100% of the time it will be enough. In the brief moment it took for me to completely rouse from half-sleep to full-consciousness I was given understanding. The scripture that flashed in my mind was, "Keep knocking, and the door will be opened for you... the person who keeps knocking will have the door opened." (Matt 7:7,8) The understanding that was given was that the wood was the cross...the cross opens the door...the cross is repentance. The entire purpose of Jesus' life and what He accomplished on the cross was about repentance and salvation.  America has closed the door, only wood can knock, and only repentance will open it. 

 Not what I was expecting, but enough for those meant to receive it.