Hi, all! Just a thought.

Our recent New England trip afforded us many opportunities for adventure. One particularly interesting place we visited was the Mark Twain Home and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The sprawling house itself is a masterpiece to behold. The weather was beautiful, so we took our time wandering the grounds before heading inside to see the exhibits and make some photos.

Having grown up in Mississippi, the stories of Mark Twain have always been fascinating to me. I was excited to get to see a first edition copy of “Tom Sawyer” and the other things on display. That particular house has been called by some, “the loveliest home that ever was.”

Even thought of in those terms, it was truly just a house, as was the home of Emily Dickinson that we visited in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the boyhood home of Theodor Geisel (long before he became Dr. Seuss) in Springfield, Massachusetts. Fascinating they were to see. But, in the end, they were just houses where some historically famous person had once dwelt.

When you visit your particular church house on any given worship day, are you visiting the Lord’s house, or are you just visiting a house where someone nice used to live? By asking that, I mean this, does the Lord truly dwell among you and your fellow worshipers when you have gathered in His name to worship Him? Do you go to church expecting to have an encounter with Him, or are you just expecting to visit a nice place, have a nice feeling, and get out at a nice time?

We took with us to each of those locations an expectation to experience something we’d never experienced before. We went with high hopes and with photograph-taking-capabilities in hand, so as to not miss a single thing we encountered.  

I can’t help but wonder how many of us simply step into the church house expecting just a place, instead of stepping into the Lord’s house expecting to experience Him.

A house is a house is a house. And one day the houses of Twin, Dickinson, Seuss, and others will all be gone. What will remain are the memories and the experiences. What is of this earth will one day be gone as well. Gather all you can, experience all you dare, let your mind’s eye capture all it can take in, and then take those God-given experiences out into the world to share with someone who hasn’t seen it!

That’s our charge. Our challenge. His command for us. Go, and tell. For they may not see it otherwise.

Just a thought.

’Til later.

Brad Campbell can be reached at mastah.pastah@yahoo.com.