MISSING THE BIG ONE

Have you ever left an event too early? Maybe it was a ballgame that seemed over, so you left and on your way home you heard your team won in the last minutes. But you'd left early because you were certain how it would end. Or you no longer cared, but either way you missed seeing what you came for.

Carol and I did something like that last Friday evening, July 4. We had sat in our car over a half an hour on a lovely overlook waiting for the fireworks to start. We did enjoy a few exploding rockets here and there. We had heard there would be fireworks, but it seemed they were over, so we went home. Along the way we saw groups of people sitting by the roadside. We, of course, were sure there was no more, so we went home to watch fireworks on TV. Nice, but just not the same.

Within minutes of closing the garage door the largest fireworks display our town has seen in years started going off only a mile or two from our house. We went outside, but trees hid most of it and then it was over. We should have waited longer, but we missed it. Oh well, there's always next year.

The idea of leaving early seemed the thing to do. After all, we're Rockies fans, and we're used to saying there's always next year. Missing a winning game or fireworks really isn't that important in the big picture of life, but there's still some regret.

However there might not be a next time or a next year with something really important, like missing out on heaven and landing in hell. People don't talk much about hell these days. The idea of God casting us into a pit of flames or making us suffer agonies of a lake of fire seems far-fetched for a loving God. 

Consider this - hell would be bad enough if it was an eternity of knowing you missed out being with God! You didn't take God seriously, so you turned your back on Him or were too busy or became disinterested or some other reason. 

And now in hell you can see the believers rejoicing in God's presence, but you can't because you missed it! There's deep regret in knowing you could have had it  and can never get it back. That would be hell of the worst kind.

Perhaps the small regrets we have in life today are given to remind us of the greatest regret of missing out being with God. Maybe we'd better not say no to Him again. Maybe we'd better not turn our back on God again. 

But we can  be sure of this: He'll be there waiting if we turn back to Him now. Isaiah 55:7 says, "Let them turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on them, and to our God, for He will freely pardon." That's Good News if there ever was any.

Is any reason for turning our back on God worth what we will miss?