The Meaning Behind a Worn Out Doorbell

We've had a lot of visitors to our house in Homewood this week, which has been a common theme for the past couple of years. We have a constant stream of visitors who ring our doorbell. Tonight I took Kyra and Sierra to get a movie at Redbox, and as we were getting into our car parked on the street in front of our house something caught Kyra's attention. It was starting to get dark outside, and she noticed that the neighbors' houses on either side of our house had their doorbell buttons illuminated. The light in our doorbell wasn't on. It was broken. Kyra pointed it out to me, and she said, "Daddy, we've had so many visitors since we moved to Homewood that the light in the doorbell is broken!" We all had a good laugh as we realized what that meant. Our home has been opened to many people. Honestly, I can't remember a day when we haven't had a neighbor visit us since we've lived in Homewood. It would be really weird if we didn't have somebody eating dinner with us, or playing games in the backyard, or discussing the meaning of life on our front porch. We've met hundreds of different kids through that worn out doorbell. That doorbell has known the fingers of prostitutes and homeless people, mentors and mentees, school principals and pastors, small group members and family members, and just about every other kind of person. Our family never knows who to expect from one moment to the next, and we like it that way. That lifestyle is what following Jesus is all about. God wants to work through us to reach many different kinds of people at many different hours of the day and night. In its most simple form, our doorbell light is broken because God wants us to love our neighbors.