Invitation — A Response to the Knocking

Small children seem to naturally love sharing their joy, their experiences of new discoveries, or something they've recently learned. I like to think of them as a canvas that God uses to show us his personality. His love and joy shine through the excited voice, the bright smile, and the gleaming eyes of a happy child.

Unfortunately, too often, rather than bathe our own souls in contemplating God's love for us and his desire to share with us all manner of things, we hold onto our desires. We are so attached to seeking our own will, moment by moment, that our own thoughts, and our own interest have precedence, and we cause the child to be quiet. We can do so with gentleness and kindness, which allows the moment to come to a calm and peaceful end, or we can do so with an impatient and harsh tone, which does make the child be quiet, but also causes them to withdraw in their heart. A little sadness enters, where joy had been gushing forth just before the harsh tone of the human will of the parent entered the scene.

Along with the pleasant memories of the joys shared with my own children as they were growing up, I think about that type of situation. I'm sure I was sometimes guilty of using that harsh tone with my own children. I think it is one aspect of how God tries to show us, in real time and in our own daily lives, how imposing our human will on our relationship with him causes him to withdraw. God is Love. God is light. If we push against his Love and his Light by asserting our own desire without consideration of his Will, he pulls back, withdraws. I think it is possible that he permits that reality to be made manifest to us in the withdrawal of that little child, the bright gleam in the eyes vanishing because the head is now turned down.

My attention this morning probably turned to focus on the joy of a smiling, excited child because the story of Micah Kim was fresh in my mind. Last night, my wife and I watched a news program featuring Paul & Maggie Kim talking about their five-year-old son Micah. Micah fell ill with a serious case of influenza just before Christmas last year, 2025. He passed away on December 31st. His father, Paul, is a content creator who seeks to share the Catholic faith through social media outlets. He posted a video about Micah on January 1, 2026. He wanted to thank everyone for their prayers for Micah and to assure everyone of his confidence that his little boy was now in the arms of the Father.

He also shared a craft project that one of Micah's siblings found among Micah's belongings. It was a tree, with a portion of the trunk colored in, the branches adorned with small pieces of tissue paper to represent leaves, in the brilliant colors of Fall. Micah had created it some time before his illness. Paul pointed to the top of the page where Micah had printed: "I will be with you." Exodus 3, and at the bottom of the page, Paul pointed to where Micah had printed his name. It was as if the Holy Spirit had led Micah to cite that verse because, in the providence of God, the child's short time on earth would be used by the Lord to draw a multitude of souls closer to him. That single verse would be a knock upon the hearts of those who would be touched by the video that would be made after Micah's death — a Divine Providence Coherence in my book.

Paul shared with everyone willing to watch his broken heart, his steadfast hope in salvation, and his trust that his son was in the place where Paul hopes all people will arrive. Apparently, the video went viral, and then people all over the world started sharing with the Kim family that they were petitioning Micah for his prayers, and the stories of answered prayers have been pouring in. I'll return to Micah in a moment, but I want to consider the knock at the heart.

In Revelation 3:20, Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." I knew that the verse was bound to be included in the BRA Project treasure trove, so I ran a search for "Revelation 3:20" to find out. The search results totaled 951. I didn't count the number of diary entries in the results, but I did scroll through and observed that the verse had found resonance with at least one diary entry in every single volume of the Book of Heaven. Yes, all 36 volumes, with high numbers of results in Volumes 12 & 30.

Claude had identified that passage as resonating with various statements contained in the diary, but I was looking for a specific context, and I found one that fit. I'm sure there are other selections from the Book of Heaven that would communicate the same thought, but the following one was almost a perfect complement to the idea of invitation as a response to the knock.

I realize that what I am about to share is not new or profound, but it is coming from my personal experience. Since God crafts each of his images with personalized care and attention to detail, my experience may differ slightly from others’.

The articles I’ve been writing have given me repeated opportunities to think about my relationship with Christ. One aspect of the relationship that really crystallized last night was that the Invitation to let God in always comes after the knocking at the heart. Circumstances would arise, usually in the form of a struggle or a difficulty, then an opportunity to take a step of faith would be presented. That opportunity to take the step is what I’m calling the knock, not the invitation. That opportunity, that glimpse, that intuition or prompting I see as Jesus standing at the door of the heart, knocking. The invitation is the response to the knock. When I’ve responded to the knocking, the grace has followed.

In all likelihood, the knocking is going on incessantly, like the child excited to share some joy or experience they have been blessed to receive. God has so much that he wants to give — I just can’t imagine that the knocking isn’t practically non-stop. I don’t think that’s quite right, though. I think it’s more like the desire on God’s part is to be knocking all the time, but the disordered human will too often forces him to withdraw… poised wanting to knock, wanting to give his love more fully, his grace more abundantly, but blocked by the “do not disturb” sign we put up in our will.

However, he is not deterred forever. When I was lost and confused in my youth, a knock came one day, and I opened the door, just a crack, to see what he wanted. At first it seemed like nothing, but then just a few minutes later, his foot in the door, I flung it open, and he came in. He poured out his grace on my soul, and we dined together. Since then, my human will has had the “do not disturb” sign out way more than I even care to think about, but now I try to be attentive so I don’t miss the knocks.

A point of clarification is appropriate. I am not talking about locutions, apparitions, or any supernatural phenomena whatsoever. I’m no Luisa Piccarreta, far from it. I’m talking about ordinary circumstances of human life, the struggles and trials that are part of the journey on this side of heaven. The knocks come in any number of ways, and the more receptive a soul is to responding to the knocking at the heart, the more opportunities arise to open the door and invite him in. Even if the soul is in the state of grace, God is on a mission to adorn that soul and draw it closer and closer into union with him, into the uniformity of wills as Jesus called it in that May 21, 1900, diary entry.

In the diary entry selection quoted above, Jesus said: “It is my usual way to ask, whenever I want to give.” In Matthew, Jesus tells us that the knocking is mutual. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives.” I really like how the BRA analysis placed those two passages together, one right after the other. It really highlights the reciprocal exchange that was discussed in the Romans 8 series.

Since in Christ, we are all one body, other members can be invited to join in the asking, the knocking. Members living on earth, and members taken into the light on the other side. And I’m confident that among those members are the little children like Micah who passed from this life while still in that wonderful age of innocence, and they are joyfully knocking. Knocking with the excited joy they spread among their family and friends while on earth. The knocks of those little ones must resonate strongly in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. You can almost hear the Blessed Mother saying, “Son, you hear the knocking of that little one? Please, for the greater glory of your Father, answer that knocking; there is a door just waiting to be opened on earth.”

Micah Kim, pray for us.