Kicked out of Heaven

28/12/2017

PLAYING A DIFFERENT TUNE

Heaven is like a beautiful home that is adorned with golden candlesticks, beautiful furniture, rich and colourful rugs, crystal glasses and chandeliers.

Now imagine that in this lifetime that you have received an invitation to go home to a feast that awaits you and you feel really honoured and your cells start tingling all over . . .

Now, you have read the invitation but have forgotten to read the fine print at the bottom of the gold-leafed invitation. It states that in order for you to enter through the door to rooms of heaven, you need to take off your muddy boots.

In your excitement, you clean up and pick your favourite dress or suit and you do your hair with all the styles and gels that you can muster. You place any jewellery that you have on your fingers, toes, neck, ears and wrists and anywhere else that you think heaven would want to notice.

You pick your favourite shoes and they match your clothes and you feel ready to attend the feast in heaven and you set off towards the doors that promise a home-coming of note . . .

You arrive timeously and you knock at the door using the ancient and beautiful doorknob. A thunderous sound rings through the home, which is so large and incredible that you cannot take it all in.

The door partially opens and a huge Being of Light greets you in a voice that sounds like an angel,

'Can I help you?' he asks.

'I have an invitation,' you reply.

The Being of Light takes the invite and sees that it is authentic and as he is about to open the door, he looks down and stops you.

'You cannot enter with those muddy shoes,' he states.

You look down and lo and behold, instead of the shoes that you picked, there are great big muddied boots on your feet. You are amazed at how they got there. 

'I will go and change my shoes,' you stammer and leave promptly.

You return home and take the muddy boots off and place another pair of your shoes on and although they don't look the best, you are eagre not to miss the homecoming. As you slip out your door, the bracelet drops off your wrist and you shrug and leave it behind.

Again you approach the heavenly door and the thunderous sounds call from within. Again, the invite is accepted but your feet are again found to be in muddy boots.

For a third, fourth, fiftieth time you try until the one hundredth time, you have no jewellry on, your hair is messy, your make-up (if you  have any) is smeared, your feet are bare and you do not look fit for the home-coming in heaven . . .

but one last time, you approach those colossal doors and feeling tired and spent, you laugh at yourself and what you must look like, but you have nothing to lose and you chime the bells by knocking hard on the doorknob.

The same Being of Light opens the door and asks the very same question

'Can I help you?' he asks.

'I have an invitation,' you reply.

The Being of Light takes the invite and sees that it is authentic and as he is about to open the door, he looks down and then opens the door for you to enter for your feet are bare.

You enter in through the doors of heaven and they close behind you.

Moral of this story of change:

Many times in a lifetime and for many lifetimes, we are invited to attend the presence of something so grand and fabled, so pure and loving, so beautiful and peaceful yet time after time, we are sent back to begin again, to prepare ourselves anew and hope to gain entrance. No matter what we adorn ourselves with, we never seem to clothe ourselves in the right garments.

We place all the glamourous things on us, thinking that heaven dances to the same tune that we do, but are in error. 

When we arrive at the doors and our feet are always covered in muddied boots, is the moment where we face our greatest fear - the fear that we have not done enough to enter through the doors. The muddied boots are a testament to the journeys we have taken.

It matters not that your shoes are matching your garments nor the treasures that you wear so proudly on your body. 

There is one condition at the bottom of the invitation and it states that you are to take off your muddy boots . . .

The place behind the doors is holy ground and only those prepared to enter with clean bare feet can pass through. Those with bare feet have learnt that it is not what they wear, who they are seen with, how rich they are or colour-co-ordinated their clothing is. They have learnt over and over to drop the things that have no place behind the doors. They have also learnt that it is not about the road you have taken but how you have walked it.

You cannot lie or cheat your way through the doors for the muddy boots will always appear on your feet if you have not learnt to drop all the unnecessary baggage and glamour that you have thought was acceptable. 

Bare feet have learned to walk on holy ground, to see life as precious and each moment as a gift of grace. The person in the analogy forgot to spend time on looking glamourous and eventually turned their gaze towards simply being acceptable.

Grace favours the humble and they gain entry to the cosmic invitation.

Change is all about singing a new tune!

It is about releasing the things that keep our feet in muddy boots, the things that don't really matter, when we have finally realised that we will be sent back time and time again until we are comfortable with bare feet. 

In the beginning of the invitations, we are careless with our thoughts and the songs that we sing and we even mock those who have drab or unco-ordinated shoes on. We take jabs at those who don't seem so clued in, dress funny, don't look the part, haven't got enough, sleep in boxes, drive cheaper cars, live humbly - 

 - but we are only on the first invitation and pride is our master.

Those that don't seem so prideful and are humble and gracious with what they have, have approached that door many more times and they are so close to being invited in. 

They can only forgive the mocking, judgement and scorn, because they too were once like that many invitations ago!

- Jaylee Balch -

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