Day 4 - Shaking Off the Dust

Matthew 10: 11-14

I appreciate everyone’s comments and messages about the entries so far. It helps to know that people are reading and that you are finding it encouraging. If you haven’t shared your thoughts with me yet, please do so. I would like to hear from you and to know what you think.

A couple of the comments that I have received have led to an interesting discussion about dating itself and how to go about pursuing God’s will.

I read this passage today, and I thought it was a good analogy for dating. It was certainly not written in the context of dating, but rather in commissioning the apostles for ministry. However, the steps that they were given seem to apply to the dating process as well.

• Search for a worthy person (v 11). Obviously a key component of dating is to find someone of solid character and spiritual maturity.
• Greet new opportunities (v 12) to get to know that person. My translation… Be open.
• Test it. It actually says, “If the house is deserving” (v 13). Find out if this person is God’s best for you. Find out if God is blessing it, and if the compatibility, the values, the growth is there. I think time and prayer are the only ways to determine the answer to this question.
• If it is, then let God’s peace rest in it (v 13). Enjoy it! Build that trust and intimacy that will prepare you for a covenant marriage.
• If/ when God stops blessing it, and peace departs from it, its time to leave (v 13).

Leaving is seldom easy, especially when it means walking away from something that once seemed like it had God’s blessing. But it doesn’t mean that the experience was a failure. It maybe means that God brought us together for a reason, that He did bless it, and then He was ready to move us on to another place, another situation, perhaps another relationship.

At first, I thought shaking off the dust was a harsh act of bitterness. Now, I don’t think it is. I see it more as a symbolic closing of one door, a cleansing act, so that we, I, can move on to the next place of ministry or growth or relationship that God has in store without looking back.