We have a mailbox disease that is catching! You might be saying "What?" Our mailboxes at home and at church all have the same disease. It is a :mixed up mail" disease. We keep getting mail for other people in our mailboxes more and more often.
Yes, we have mail "boxes"! We are the designated ones to collect the mail for our church at a post office mailbox that needs a key to open. It is located in a small rural town with limited post office hours for when someone is on duty. And far enough away that we often only get the mail on Sabbath when we are in town. That, of course, is when no one is on duty. No one to straighten out any problem we might have. And often the problem is we have mail for someone else in our church mail. Sometimes we have driven down the road when we discover the problem. That has happened often enough that now we take the time to inspect what is in our possession. A couple of times we opened mail thinking it was for us when it wasn't!! With advice we now put the 'wrong' mail back into the outgoing mail slot and forcibly give it a shove so that it flies beyond the drop box clear out onto the floor where it gets proper attention.
Our home rural mailbox is a big box! Because it receives mail for 3 houses and mail for at least 7-9 people/entities--three families and extended family and for other items that are also for the church. It must be really confusing at times for the mail person. Sometimes I check the box and there is no mail in the box! Sometimes it is very full. Any one of the 7 people could have been the one to get the mail--who wants it the most? But once again, we sometimes get mail in our box for a completely different address than where we live. Recently, it has been happening about once a week. Sometimes we realize that what we received is kind of important, important enough that the right person should have their mail. Sometimes it is a catalog or something else that could be called junk mail. Probably no one wants junk mail, still it has another address on it and they should have it. Once I "received" a piece of mail that is like something I receive regularly. I proceeded to deal with it and prepared to respond when I discovered that it did not have my name on it! It was for someone else in another house who also gets the same item. I am afraid that I sent it on to them but not in the same condition as when it was received. Sometimes we have personally delivered wrongly received mail. Lately, it has been happening so frequently that we have just started putting it back in the mailbox and raising the notifying flag that there is mail in the box to be picked up. And hopefully the wrong mail for us gets delivered into the right mailbox at the right address place! Yes, we have a mailbox disease and it seems to be catching! Makes me wonder who has received our mail that isn't as honest as they could be?
I have another type of mailbox too. It is called "inbox" for emails. Lately I have received mail that I haven't asked for! Perhaps you have too. These emails appear strange and I do not like them. I was trying to stop them from coming until I was told my efforts were not going to help--pointless. Now I just delete as fast as I see them arrive. They usually have a "trying to be enticing" message of something free, or something I have won! or 3rd attempt to contact me, all of which are not true and deceitful. I have not asked for them to be sent to me, and they are invading my privacy!
All this mail trouble has gotten me to thinking--Can you imagine going to the mailbox and receiving a letter that was postmarked from Heaven? I would not want to pass it along as delivered to the wrong address! Instead, I would be extremely curious to read the contents of a letter from Heaven. It would be something I would open immediately! I bet it would be filled with words of encouragement and comfort. Maybe even an invitation to come and visit. The truth is we all have received letters from Heaven—just not in our mailboxes. They are in the pages of our Bibles. These letters describe what Heaven is like, how to get there, who will be there, and how to bring others there with you! We like to get mail and to open mail that is personal to us. But do we open the letters from Heaven with the same desire?
Most of us check our email (or Facebook page) several times a day. Do we check in with God nearly as much? I know I don’t!
Prayer is more than a ritual habit; it is building and maintaining a relationship with our brother, our Lord. We talk, text and email our friends and family all day long, so why do we spend so little time talking with Him? We don’t need a hot spot to check in with God! Every time I check my email, I should also check in with God to see what He has to say to me!
I like this quote that I read recently--
"It’s not enough to splash a little prayer on in the morning or to run through a sprinkler of God’s mercy now and then. It’s not enough to double our spirits in an hour of worship ...... or to dash into a drizzle of teaching every month or so. Our souls need to soak in God’s presence. It’s no luxury, this time we spend in the healing waters of God’s grace. It’s neither excess nor indulgence to immerse ourselves in communion with our creator. It’s a spiritual necessity if we want to become the people God has created us to be." [Penelope J. Stokes]
God, my personal mail deliverer, never delivers the wrong mail to my mailbox. He never gives the mail/letter a shove to get my proper attention. Every item He places in my possession has a message direct to me and for me. I just need to open it and read and appreciate and act. I do not need to put it back and think that it is directed to someone else though He is not opposed to me sharing it with you or anyone else.
