Jesus:: Time to Leave

The nature of our closet relationships is that these are the people who can comfort or harm us the most. Nobody else has the proximity to impact us in this way. 
Think of the person who knows your deepest and darkest secrets. The kinds of things that you have only shared with a few people. 

I would imagine these faces come quickly to your mind. These aren't strangers or acquaintances. You have history and connection with these people that let you know they're somewhat safe and the kinds of people you can trust with this precious cargo. 

Many years ago I let a Kirby vacuum salesman inside my home. If you aren't familiar with Kirby vacuums, then allow me to do my best to introduce you to them. It's a very large, very involved and very expensive vacuum cleaner that is exclusively sold by door to door sales people. I love talking with people so I ended up letting the guy in and tell me all the wonders of Kirby vacuums. If you get far enough into this pitch they will offer to demonstrate how their vacuum works and I had a spot that I just couldn't get out of our carpet. 

While the vacuum did take out that stain, his shoes left several more, and much more difficult to remove stains in our carpet. I was officially done with our interaction after an hour and a half, but I still had to meet with his manager and repeatedly refuse many payment plans and special deals to get them to leave. My wife walked in at the tail end of this fiasco and will still rush to the door if a salesman is coming our way. 

This can be a bit like our closest relationships. We've let someone in, it's gone terribly and there's a mess everywhere. It can make us wary about letting anybody else into our lives. 

Take a listen to a story about some people who were getting close to Jesus and the moment they decided to end the relationship. I encourage any of you who have hurt or have been hurt by people closest to listen to this model of Jesus and grow closer to the God who knows abandonment.