As some of you may know, each month I ask the Lord to give me a word to study, understand, seek in Him, and practice. This month in Cambodia the word He gave me was INVITE. At first I wasn’t sure why this word was one I needed to learn more of, but as this month is coming to a close I am reflecting on all the ways this word is imbedded in my daily life and relationship with Him.
If we define the word “invite,” we would find that it means “to ask or request (someone) to go somewhere or do something formally or politely,” thus giving us the opportunity to accept or deny the occasion. From our human perspective, an invitation speaks of the inviter’s desire to be with you or to share something with you such as time, conversation, and memories. We love this pursuit and the feeling of being important and valuable to the other person. Sometimes the lack of an invitation speaks of the opposite, causing us to wonder or question our value and importance with an individual. This reaction displays that our hearts are fickle and we often misunderstand our value and importance to One who created us.
Something I love about the Lord is His constant invitation. I think back to the day I met Jesus one Christmas eve at nine years old. My heart was beating out of my chest; there was no way I was leaving the church that night without falling to my knees and calling upon the name of Jesus as my Lord and Savior. This was just the beginning of the abundance of invitations I would come to receive from the Lord. Much like that night, when the Lord invites me into the unknown, my heart still pounds out of my chest, anticipating the next thing out of my mouth, which is either the words He has invited me to speak, or my last meal. Other times, His invitation comes in the form of random down time, which I could choose to spend on social media, or I could instead choose to be in His word. Either way, we are always invited by the Lord to accept or deny the occasion that is before our eyes. Since I jumped back into the gospels this month, I have noted the way Jesus invited His disciples to accept or deny the opportunity to be one of the twelve. In Matthew 4:18-22, Jesus calls out to Simon Peter and his brother, Andrew, and later to James and John, saying “come, follow Me, and I will show you how to fish for men.” Can you imagine one of these men saying “no thanks Jesus, that sounds a little too uncomfortable for me, I’m good.” Did they not have a choice to accept or deny that invitation? Yet, each one of them immediately dropped their nets. They accepted the invitation to spend time, have conversation, and make memories with the One who was about to prove to the nations He was and is the Savior.
This month I have been asked to lead in areas I found myself to be self conscious. I’ve been asked to log off of Netflix to spend more time in the Word or with my teammates who I may or may not have the chance to live and do life with ever again. I have also been asked to speak when I found the conversation challenging or stretching. I have recognized the invitation to know Jesus more through the opportunities to serve more or differently, worry less and pray more, worship when my heart is weary and struggling to sing praise. In some of these situations, I only learned because I accepted the invitation and rose to the occasion. But honestly speaking, I often recognized the invitation after the fact and found I had denied it more times than accepting. In each borrowed breath that we breathe, we are invited to know more, see more, speak more, love more, pray more, dance more, worship more and be more like Christ than the breath before. As I press into this word in my own life I am inviting you to take a moment to seek what area of your life He is inviting you into. Are you being invited into more by the Lord? Are you accepting or denying an opportunity to rise to the occasion He is inviting you to? Are you going to immediately drop your empty net, or will you say “No thanks Jesus I’m comfortable?”
