Devotion

When I was a kid in church, I knew something weird was going on. I would hear the reading from the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, with the word “immediately” repeated over and over. I thought I could figure out my own timing for taking God seriously, for being a pastor, for a lot of things.

I responded to God’s call for all those things with my timing and found myself with a wife, children, home, and job—all of them wonderful callings from God, but still with no trace of God’s “immediately.” Then one night our friend across the street came home from a sales meeting. He was inspired! He knocked out a dining room wall and installed French doors the next day. When I asked him why, he responded with conviction and said, “I knew it was time.” What would life be like if I could hear God’s “immediately” and knock down some walls?