God Knows (Where my front door is . . .and everything else!)

So….I was wondering. . . say you have a dome  home.  I mean a whole house that is the circle shape dome with no “sides” because there aren’t any corners because there aren’t any angles (if you follow me and if you do God help you.)

Where would you put the front door?  Where is the front?  No driveway to give it away.  This is a home you are having built.  Where would you put your front door really?

I would put mine on top of the dome home.  Then I would order a pizza and see what happens upon delivery.   Now don’t get testy . . . It was my husband’s idea and he used to deliver pizza! 

I guess I should stop trying to be humorous.  My Mom always told me I could be trying at times.  When I was riding in the car the other day I spied a lot of nice front of houses but gunky not too neat side of houses.   Curb appeal.  Does that mean whatever is showing at the curb is all that matters?  How come we don’t have the house look as good on the back side and other sides as we do the front side.  I mean the front of the house always looks so much grander with a big door frame with a different color painted door and a wreath upon the door and a nice welcome mat in front of that and beautiful carriage porch lights above the mat and so on and so on.  Then around the corner to the side of the house you’ll see garden hoses looped around it’s metal holder, shrubbery refusing to fill in, weeds coming out of the brick cracks, and tiny windows covered with privacy window contact paper so you can see into their bathroom.  Whoa!  Is this the same house?  Are these the same tenants in there that live behind the front door?   What is going on???

I’m a homeowner and I’m more artsy than doesy conversely I love to create but I’m not that great at finishing the beautiful idea.  I remember all too well for my first home making an abstract design with volcano rock accompanied with a spiral topiary within a foot of my front door but on the sides and the back  . . . not so much.  When I was little my mom used to tease me whether I was in the room or not about how I would decorate only the showing side of the Christmas tree and leave the back and near corners left naked limbed.

“You have to make it look good all the way around.”  She would say and continue, “You can’t just have things like nice in the front then do nothing to the back.  It all matters.”  Those words are true.  I’m not just talking about trees and houses here either.

As a Christian and being raised a Baptist to boot I have myself been guilty of similar behavior when it comes to looking like God would have me look and I don’t mean physical appearance literally.

When I am at church it’s easy and instinctual to show my front door side; however, when I have been overrun by pure evil bad drivers, or wrought with chronic pain, or frustrated with my dishwasher not doing its part in housekeeping hygiene then I show my back door side instead.  At church I try to act my best of course, but I should try to act my best everywhere and all the time.   I need to hang pretty ornaments for everyone to appreciate all around my tree not just in some 2 dimensional view that only appears in the eyes of a 7-year-old artsy, messy, impatient little girl.

It is asking a bit of me to do that and I knew when I had this column in mind I was really just writing to myself.  I do that 98% of the time anyhow.  God doesn’t just see me in church.  He “sees” me in my car, in my grocery store, in my shopping mall, in my backyard, in my attorney’s office, in my basement, in my kid’s schoolhouse, you name it.  I might as well be a dome under God’s watchful eye because there isn’t any debate with him over where that front door should go.  He wants me to be Christ-like all the way around and everywhere.