Once upon a time there was a master carpenter whose biggest passion was to build and then give away his beautiful creations. He would create beautiful and lavish homes and then simply turn around and give away the key. The thing was that he wasn’t simply a carpenter, he was also a master electrician (owner of the power source itself) and the janitor. These homes were specifically built with his imprint upon them and if instructions were followed they pretty much could be maintained for eternity. However it wasn’t in his nature to push his way in.
These homes were freely built and given away out of pure love, and even though the creator longed to be in a loving relationship with the new owner and a part of its maintenance forever, he was patient and kind and respected the new owner’s free will so it was entirely up to them what they would do with their new home. Many out of pure love and gratitude wanted him to be part of their lives, and welcomed him in and listened to him as to how best care for their home. Others welcomed him in, but weren’t really interested in listening to him…they would kind of just nod in his direction whenever he tried speaking to them but then went on to do exactly as they pleased…it was their home after all and life was too short, and besides it just wasn’t cool to have him around all the time. And then there were those who didn’t welcome him in at all. Some would say that they did hear banging when the house was coming into being, but asserted that its creation happened all on its own… the keys just happen to fall on their lap too…so it’s all theirs, no need for gratitude and direction on upkeep as long as they were having a good time in the home, then it’s all good.
But what the first set of folks got to experience first hand that the others never got a chance to, was the full expression of the gift. This amazing home was fully wired for electricity. Amazingly fully powered by the creator himself. The upkeep belonged to him as well (with constant cooperation of the new homeowner of course). There was an amazing trash removal system. Every single time that it was activated, the windows would also get cleaned and amazing amount of light would come pouring in…light so strong and yet gentle that even small speks of dust could now be seen and attended to before it built up but the owner never felt overwhelmed. So even though dirt came in as readily as it did in the other homes ( maybe a little less as these owners were now more observant…but this is debatable)it was never allowed to stack up, so this home would never go into decay as long as the creator was on board (but keep in mind the free will of the new home owner).
However I’m sad to report that it wasn’t the same way with the other homes. Not for lack of trying on the other home owners’ part. They had their little lamps going, and sometimes huge neon signs even, that definitely brought in light but often only served to cause blindness and greater darkness in the end. They had paid professionals to help deal with trash, but it seemed like it could never go far enough so they often decided to just not call it trash anymore after all one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, right? The only problem with that is the accompanying decay. These houses would self destroy in time if the creator wasn’t brought in (and yes, he could still be welcomed in at any point). And still some in the second batch of folks…who did know the creator would often blame him for the decay. Saying that He was a loving Creator of all the homes, not merely the first set, and had given keys to all equally…so he had to maintain all the houses equally and were often angered when this didn’t happen. However the second set were very kind hearted and tolerant folks and really wanted nothing more than this to be true, so they kept spreading this message of ‘love’. But how can an untruth that will bring about such decay ever be loving? It shutoff the opportunity for the real answer…which is of course to acknowledge the need for the Carpenter in the first place!