So Close, Yet so Far.

  Imagine there's a contest.  The contest is to find the wonderful village of Chocowinity.  You've never been there before (not many have)and you are clueless as to how to pinpoint its location.  You're dropped off in the Congo with a Swiss Army knife, some gum and a pack of Swiss Cake rolls (mmmmmm, Swiss cake rolls...oh sorry).  After days of stowing away on banana boats and hopping trains you end up in California and finally in Cherokee, North Carolina. You find yourself deliriously debating a cigar store indian, because you were so excited to have Swiss Cake rolls that you ate them all the first day and only had gum for the rest of your journey. Anyway, compared to the Congo and Cali, Cherokee, NC is pretty darn close to Chocowinity, NC.  But the contest is to make it to Choco.  You're talking 8 hours in a car averaging 65 miles an hour.  Do you win?  No, close (compared to the Congo), but yet so far.  You explain that they are both Native American names and in NC; but it doesn't matter. 

     Our lives are alot like that.  Honestly alot of us spend a lot of time going to church and sometimes talking about God and praying when things are going poorly, but how many of us really make it to Chocowinity?  For the person who has realized that God is really the only way to go, our "Chocowinity" is total surrender.  I'm not saying that if we're not perfect we are a million miles away from God, but, how often do we even try to put God first and give him everything?  If you're like me, there are plenty of things that come before your relationship with your Creator and Savior.  I hear people all the time that claim to follow Christ but He and His Church are second choice to any number of activities. Work, school, and definitely sports.  But even good stuff like those things and even something as precious as family sometimes gets in front of God and that is wrong!  It has been said that "Jesus is either Lord of all or He's Lord of nothing." 

    It scares me that so many of us are going through life coasting spiritually.  Jesus gave us His all and if we give him 5% of our life we think we've done something.  I think its time to smash our idols and get our priorities in order. 

Who wants to hear, when you meet Jesus, "You were close, but yet so far."