Isn’t it fun when God shows you a new meaning to a familiar verse? “Enter his gates with thanksgiving” (Psalm 100:4) was not exactly forbidding but not friendly either. It was King Xerxes’ sentry with scimitar raised over the threshold to the throne room: the penalty for improper approach is death. If you want a hearing with God, bring offerings.

But as I tried the verse out one day it shifted on me, like those trick pictures that look like a woman in a hat one minute and then suddenly look like a rabbit.

I had decided to abandon the prayer list that morning and just commence to thanking God for everything I could think of as I walked: Thank you for my salvation, thank you for mornings, thank you for my kids’ health, thank you for chocolate, thank you for Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Greensleeves.”

It was very odd indeed. I got happy while saying thank you — and then it happened. I saw that what I had mistaken as a warning was actually a secret password, and delivered with a bit of a wink. I heard it like this: “Pssst. Hey there darling. Glad you’re finally trying it out. I thought you’d never do it! Follow me and enter into a deeper experience of my love.”