“You mean this whole time, all I had to do was click my darn heels together?”

It was only fitting that we would find it in a flea market of all places, full of just about everything you could think of that you didn’t need. It was a button with a picture of Dorothy and a shocked look on her face with the caption: “You mean this whole time, all I had to do was click my darn heels together?”

It often comes as a bit of a surprise how much truth there really is in fiction and fantasy. I believe that’s because God has embedded the truth deep into our DNA and whether we acknowledge it as truth, or as coming from Him, it doesn’t seem to matter — it keeps coming out anyway. We can’t help it.

That’s why it’s the same for Dorothy as it is for all of us. When we finally discover the way home, we find out it’s really quite simple, and the means to get there has been with us all along.

The prodigal son discovered he’d had it all along back at his father’s house. All he needed was to turn around and go home. When you come home to Christ it’s not some great departure that requires much learning and restructuring of your thinking. You don’t have to go to a 12-week course to learn this. You don’t even have to go through detox. You just turn around and get home to the truth that’s been with you all along. It’s the Holy Spirit who’s been pulling on your chain your whole life anyway. You’re just finally coming home to it. That’s why we call it the Gospel of Welcome.

“Welcome back to what you knew was right from the start.” In fact, sometimes it’s this kind of thing that keeps some folks away; it’s just too darn easy. They want to have to do something to earn it — to get themselves somewhere on their own power. We want the answer to be something that makes us smart or clever or powerful — something not just anyone can access. That’s what the Pharisees wanted, an exclusive religious club. They wanted heaven with the riffraff outside. Jesus switched the tables on them. Heaven was for riffraff. If you aren’t riffraff, you won’t get in, and you certainly won’t like it there if you could. And that’s just what happened. When Jesus announced who the kingdom of God was really for, they weren’t interested. They stayed on the outside, convinced that Jesus was wrong about the kingdom.

Meanwhile the rest of us are standing around in stocking feet, holding our shoes in wonder and amazement, saying, “You mean all we ever needed to do was just believe in Jesus?” Yep. That’s it. Welcome home, Dorothy.