Red Carpet Treatment

This morning I received a little present. It appeared to be shiny, cheerful and full of promise. It was an email from an enthusiastic stranger, “$2400 welcome bonus will be deposited in your new casino account! We're serious about fun. After that it's only fun and winning. Get your bonus and walk the red carpet to winnings and fun!” Number one, I don’t gamble. Second, I wouldn’t call throwing my hard-earned money away a  fun time. I've known people who have lost it all and then had to hock their wedding rings to make the bus fare home two states away.  Many can identify to swallowing one of the various destructive hooks on their way to drowning from gambling addiction - e-mail being the newest hook.

There’s only one red carpet treatment you can bet on to be honest and true and its how God responds those who throw it all away. Christ tells a parable in Luke that centers on a coin – a lost coin. It may have been lost in the laundry or maybe in a slot carousel but that’s not the point. The point is it was lost but then found! God, like the housekeeper, swept every corner, lifted every rug and inspected every hole searching out that lost coin. And God, like that housekeeper, would not give up until He found it...

Many of us can relate to that coin, feeling grimy and lost. The good news is that God knows where we are, why we are there and yet never holds any of it against us. It is because of our condition that He continues to draw us with His loving kindness. If you are in doubt, look at how He treated the ‘lost coins’ of His day. Think of the prostitute who washed his feet in a room full of critical-eyed men. Did He condemn her to the outskirts of hell? Or did he lovingly restore her dignity by affirming her trust in truth?

If He’s willing to do that for her, He’s willing to do it for us.

S.N. Belmonte  2008