Imagine three rooms. The first room is one in which there is a shiny trophy on a shelf. There is only one, and it will get handed to the only one that is deemed worthy of it. This trophy represents being considered the best, the top, the highest, and would have to be worked hard for in order to be given it. You can see what the trophy looks like, and it is beautiful! It’s so tall, grand and shiny, and it’s hard to think about anything else now that you’ve seen it in person. You know that it’s going to take hard work, hours and hours of practice, and sacrificing much in order to get good enough to even have the chance to earn this trophy, but it is so clear in your mind now of what you need to do that you know this is from God. God has finally revealed your path to you and it is suddenly so clear! “Thank you, God, for making this known to me!,” you cry.
Time goes by and you have overcome so many things. You have learned, studied, and through your obedience, been blessed with all the skills and talents to develop and improve upon, and God shows you his favor. “Well done, well done,” the Lord whispers in your ear. “Well done, well done,” others say. Your heart glows with accomplishment as you realize all that was sacrificed, but also all that was gained. It was good, and you have been rewarded for being faithful and true.
Then, when you least expect it, the Lord begins to draw your attention to a secret room known only by the two of you. You begin to develop a friendship and it becomes your favorite place to be. It’s quiet, but calls to you as loudly as a trumpet, and you are learning so much about who your Creator says you are, who Jesus is and was, and you now value your relationship and time with the Lord more than anything else. Your heart grows and glows with love, your mind thinks as Jesus thought, and your day is now guided by the prompting of Holy Spirit rather than a clock.
Next to the secret room, there is a room full of gifts which you have already been shown. There are many, each one wrapped differently and of different sizes and shapes. The many gifts are so abundant that even though they started being displayed on shelves, they now nearly fill the room. You have been led to this room by Holy Spirit, and the door has been opened to you. You are told that you may have any or even all of the gifts in the room as your reward. “Why, Lord? What did I even do to earn this?,” you ask. He reveals to you the many moments over your lifetime when you were obedient, you were kind, honest, caring, loyal, and did the right thing.
You feel how pleased God is with you, and you’re filled with gratitude that many years of loyal service to him, love for people, and obedience to following his word are finally being acknowledged. The door to this room filled with gifts has finally been opened to you, and your heart bursts with gratitude, overwhelming love and an indescribable feeling of peace. And even though you can have any and all of the gifts in the room as yours, your response is not to open even one. You immediately drop to your knees and praise God, asking him for nothing, but instead filling the air with shouts of joy, laughter, and songs of worship. It was good, and you have been rewarded for being faithful and true.
Now that you have seen all three rooms, which room do you choose to spend time in? Which room is drawing your attention more? All three are amazing rooms that only believers are given access to, and each is important along our faith journey, and there are likely even more rooms that we haven’t been shown yet. The room of the heavenly realm, for instance, is there, but with only having had a glimpse, we just have to rely on faith and trust that it will one day be revealed to us.
This is how it is when you go from being a devoted Christian to being an on-fire Jesus follower. The first room with the trophy was made accessible to you because you accepted the Lord into your heart, realizing that he is your savior and that your life needed to be entirely different because he is worthy of your praise. The room filled with gifts was opened to you because you responded as he wanted you to, through the trials and the celebrations, through the joys and the pain, and you came to a point when you realized that nothing of what you did could be attributed to yourself. All that you did, all that you are, and all that you will be is because of the Lord. Nothing of you and all of him is all that remains of you, and it is those qualities that revealed this room to you.
JOURNAL YOUR RESPONSE: Which room is drawing you more? Which room do you want to spend time in at this moment?
(From Steph: To inspire you to actually write down your responses today, and each time that you come back and read this, I am going to share what I journaled and am feeling at this moment. ~ Jan. 31, 2023 — Of all the rooms, the secret place is the one that I am drawn to now most of all, because it is in this room that I get to meet Jesus. Spending time talking to him, learning from him, laughing with him, and planning trips with him, that’s really where my heart is right now. I have found a new best friend and it makes the rest of the world seem relatively inconsequential. The secret room is like my charging station, and my whole body feels like I can’t survive without it. If I don’t spend time there at least a couple of times a day, I start to feel like my very being is turning back to dust. I don’t like feeling dust. It’s time to go back into the secret place where I can just sit and visit with Jesus. The world can go on without me and I will come out when I am recharged and ready to be a human again.)
(Update from Steph added Aug. 23, 2023 – Today, I still struggle with asking for things in the room of gifts, but not as much as I did seven months ago. These days, I continue to polish my trophy in the trophy room, but now I get great joy in adding the trophies of my brothers and sisters in Christ to the shelves alongside it. But, my favorite room is still the secret room…. oh, how I LOVE that place!!! It is still my charging station and often the only place that I can imagine going when I need to fill my oil tank. I don’t feel like I’m going to turn into dust like I did back in January, because now I know how to give and receive love, and I understand what living out my purpose looks like better each day. Today, though, I have crawled on all fours into the secret place for the majority of my day, where I will sit and recharge with Jesus. Today, I am a battle-worn soldier that feels like I’ve been beaten and bruised by a world of “Christians” that haven’t yet learned what it means to love like Jesus. How I love these people that know not what they do, but it’s still hard, and I am praying for some assurance that there are others out there who love people deeply… even the ones that continue to hurt us.)