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I had flights booked with Thomas Cook in November.  A long weekend to Turkey keeping in touch with our brother by another mother.  Thomas Cook looked like it might, hoped it wouldn’t, and then did overnight.  Another travel company no longer travelling.  Another tranche of holidaymakers with plans dashed and finances to sort.  The pain for employees, travellers, suppliers and others dependant for their own livelihoods on this newly-deceased travel company is massive!

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Waking whilst still dark, I saw the news and hopped out of bed to check our travel insurance – YAY!  So I found and booked alternative flights at a price barely different to the original.  Brother by another mother still happening in November!

Insurance is for just this kind of circumstance.  We rarely claim.  But it’s good to have it in place just in case.  Like this morning.

What if you died tonight?

Crawling in slow-moving traffic past the local Baptist church over the weekend, this  caught my eye.  Church and death (and birth and marriage).  The place for eternal life insurance.

What if you died tonight?

Who do you want to see when you wake up?  The big guy who loves you or the bad guy who doesn’t?  Want to spend your eternity in the best retirement home ever, or in that place no one even wants to see (let alone stay)?  Come in in and sign-up now – we have the contract for your eternal happiness.

But pass-on by and continue your life of iniquitous sinning – and you know where it will end …

A sales-pitch of fear.

Like a shotgun marriage.  You made your bed – now you lie in it!  Like getting your just desserts.  What did you expect when you shit on so many?  Karma always bites back! 

And “fate” always swings the pendulum.  So watch out for the bogeyman and things that go bump in the dark.

Be afraid – be very afraid …

What if YOU died TONIGHT?

I read of that old style of “evangelising”.  The sales-pitch of trained teams.  Best practice proven successful.  Best practice written down and replicated.  Just like in the bible.  The Great Commission.  Best-practiced and replicated-able selling.

“How many have you brought me?  Why should I let you in?  What have you done to deserve YOUR place in heaven?”

As a “parenting skill” it is academic.  And “correct” … “institutional” … “conditional” … And detached.

And with a simpler alternative.

Love without condition.

The love unconditional of my assessment of your worthiness for love.  Love that is not connected to my understanding of whether you deserve a place in heaven or not.  Love that is beyond my ability or comprehension to explain logically and rationally “Why Love?”.

I Am.

Three letters.  Like Y—EH.  Except I Am is complete and unedited.  I Am is all that I need.  I Am is now and forever.  I Am is not who God is but who I am also.  Love.  Without.  Condition.  I Am.  Right.  Here.  Right.  Now.

“Conditions” are things I place on My living and My loving.

If you love me like I think you should I will love you like I think I should. You want me to explain?  Well it’s very simple: screw me over and you’ll wish you’d never been born.  Okay?

Now I have insurance for this, and now you have to pay me.  Your contract – not mine – says so.  And I have been paying my dues all these years – just as your contract says. I’ve earned this.  Okay?

But try and explain love without condition?

Because you are and I am.  And that is enough and always will be.  The end.

What if I died tonight?

Shouldn’t the question be a statement?

“You are loved always without condition.  We are loved and love always without condition.  Anything else is conditional.  And that isn’t safe isn’t love.  Love and God is simple and safe.”

I Am.

(not a sales pitch)

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