This is the story about my cross picture. We were hiking a well traveled path and came to a short-cut that looked like it cut out quite a bit of travel time, even though it was a bit rockier. It was a difficult short-cut. I slipped a few times and really should have gotten hurt. It was really a bad idea, even though it looked like a lot of people had done it before. On the way back down, I decided I had learned my lesson. Even though I needed a bathroom, my feet hurt, and I really wanted to get down the trail fast, I decided that staying on the path that we were supposed to be on was the best idea. We got down past a curve and we saw it. It was beautiful. I don’t think my pictures really did it justice because I didn’t really take the time (I did need a bathroom), but we realized something. If we didn’t go on the path that we were supposed to be on, we would have missed this cross.
It was so easy to be swayed to go on the rockier path. So many footprints were there. We knew that it was well traveled. It was steep, but we really wanted to get to the top of this mountain, and this route seemed so much faster. It was really convenient, and it seemed like a good idea until about halfway up when I began to slip. I realized that no matter how tempting, this path was dangerous.
We got to the top, and to tell you the truth, it was rather disappointing. We really had better views before the hike. Mostly the view was bad because of a huge cell phone tower that was right at the top. It made for great service on our phones (Tony and I both updated our Facebook), but I really wanted more than that. We hiked up there to get some good pictures, but it was pretty disappointing.
We began to go down and we debated going down the short cut. There were signs all over the bottom of the hiking path saying for us to stay on the regular path. We decided to obey. When we obeyed, we saw something that made the whole hike worth it.
If I had chosen to obey the first time, I would have had more time to enjoy the cross. I would have had a better picture, and I would have been able to share something with you that would have been much more beautiful. I still have a decent shot, but it could have been better.
When Tony and I were talking about this the rest of the hike down, he said, “What a great sermon illustration.” Can you see it?
