Visiting Day
by Pastor Burton Kincaid, Owosso FMC (MI)

He had been looking forward to this moment all day long. After six days of labor it had finally arrived — visiting day! The man with the keys had come and swung open the large, heavy doors. The cold, gray hall had sprung to life in a warm glow of light. He could hardly control his emotions. The families began to arrive. He peered from the corner of the room, longing for the first glimpse of his loved one.

He lives for visiting day. He lives for these moments with his beloved. As the cars arrive, he watches intently. Then, finally, she arrives — his bride, for whom he would do anything. They embrace, eat a light lunch and reminisce about how things used to be. At one point, they break into song, interrupted briefly by laughter and applause.

But all too soon it is over. Tears sting his eyes as his bride departs. The man with the keys closes the heavy doors, locking them. Another "special day" is over. There he stands, alone again. And he knows that most of his visitors probably won't contact him until next time comes around.

As the last car pulls away from the church parking lot, Jesus retreats into loneliness as He awaits next Sunday — visiting day.*

Is the time we spend with Jesus an everyday thing, or do we just visit Him on Sunday?

It amazes me ... in our country of over 260 million people, of which (according to most polls) 90 percent claim to believe in God, we don't have more people serving the Lord and/or meeting with Him on a daily basis.

Let's see ... 90 percent of 260 million people is 234 million who should been in church regularly to worship the God in whom they say they believe. Sadly though, most statistics show church attendance (all faiths) totals only about 20 percent of the population, and I believe that may be generous. The fact that only some 52 million believers are showing up for church begs the question: where are the other 182 million?

Then, of course, we need to look at the number of people who do attend church. What percentage of those people has more than a Sunday-morning relationship with the Lord? Obviously, that is the point of the anecdote at the beginning of this article. The late Christian singer and songwriter, Keith Green, wrote in one of his songs: "To obey is better than sacrifice, I want more than Sundays and Wednesday nights. If you can't come to Me every day, then don't bother coming at all."

That's harsh, isn't it? But true! We need to be either 100 percent for or against the Lord. We shouldn't be content with living our lives only 58 percent for God and then thinking we are doing a good job because we are doing better than Bill Smith down the street! Let's set our goals high! Let's aim to be like Jesus!

We will fail sometimes, but we can't let that deter us. God isn't interested in our being perfect; He just wants us to rely on the One who is! Let's each do our part to make sure that every day is visiting day!