When I was little, there was a sing we learned in church choir that went like this:  one door, and only one, and yet its sides are two..inside and outside, in which side are you?  I sang that with the firm conviction that I was on the right side, INSIDE the Kingdom of heaven with Jesus, and I felt sorry for everyone who wasn’t.

Fast forward about 45 years, and God brought that song back to me this past Sunday.  We were sitting in my Lifegroup (SS) and started sharing prayer requests.  A new member of our class, who us a brand new Christian, asked us to pray for her friend who had driven her to church.  He was elderly and on oxygen 24/7, and wanted to come with her, but wasn’t breathing good that day due to weather, and couldn’t come in.

Now, by “come in”, we thought she was saying he went back home and was going to pick her up later. What SHE meant, however, was entirely different!  He was actually out in the van, hoping that he could breathe enough to walk in for church!!  Really.  We absolutely could not believe it..and once the shock wore off, there was an immediate reaction.  Didn’t the church have a wheelchair? Yep!  Would he be willing to come inside with that? Oh, yes!  So I was dispatched to find the chair, two guys took it outside and rolled him in!  AND he was able to stay for church!

What a blessing we all almost missed out on!  At our church, in Moultrie, GA, there was actually someone who wanted to worship and was sitting JUST OUTSIDE the doors!  What an amazing thing for us..and what an amazing lesson.  If this woman had not spoken up, we would have never known it and HE would have never made it inside!

And God wasn’t through with me that day.  We rode the motorcycle to church that night, and took the longer way to enjoy a longer ride.  As we passed another local church on the way, there was a house not 20 feet from it, and a little boy sitting in the grass, playing with a truck, and he could have literally walked from his yard to the church without ever crossing the street.  God spoke to me AGAIN about being just outside the opportunity to worship/know Him!

My heart was broken at that moment about the “just outside” people!  How many do we miss every week?  Every day?  And are we doing anything about it??  After all, our friend that morning just needed a wheelchair and someone to push him…and that little boy just needed someone to walk to his yard and invite them!

As we drove on and got to church that night, I was so tickled to see the man from that morning WALK inside under his own power!  And he was there Wed night for Bible study..again on his own power.  All he needed…..was a little help!

So what about you?  Are there “just outside” people in your life?  Are you trying to help?  And are you daily looking for others?? I pray that we will all be able to answer that more frequently with a YES!  And may those “just outsiders” become “all the way insiders”!