The Great Explorers

W

hen I was a small boy, I wanted to know everything.  I plagued my dad with questions about anything and everything I could think of. To this day, he still jokes with me about the questions I asked him.  It seems my favorite question was, "Why daddy?"  I wanted to know everything from why the sky was blue to the reason you couldn't see the wind.  And, to his credit, he attempted to answer my questions.  I was rarely satisfied with the answers he gave, especially when he said, "I don't know!"

Although I wasn't overly mischievous, I did enjoy exploring things and gaining first-hand knowledge of the world around me.  Like any normal boy, I did what I wasn't supposed to do, I went where I had been told not to go, and conveniently forgot certain things my mom and dad told me to do or not to do.  My desire to know took me on little jaunts, never too far away, but far enough away to appease my sense of adventure.

Behind our house, there used to be a drainage ditch.  It wasn't large by any means and was easily crossed with a single leap.  As kids, we never took notice of the ditch until after a good downpour of rain.  The ditch then became a roaring, torrential river, much like the Amazon.  As the rainwater from the local drainage pipes filled the ditch, it became alluring.  All the guys in the neighborhood would go home, find some old boots or goulashes, and we would change into old clothes.  Then we ventured forth to "explore" the ditch.  Although there was nothing to explore but dirty water, we were convinced we would find something of important value and set diligently about the task of finding it.

We walked for several minutes, facing torrential waterfalls, forging impossible rapids, determined to accomplish our task in the face of these overwhelming odds.  Sounds romantic doesn't it?  However, the results were far from attractive.  We had wet feet, wet cloths, and we were covered with enough slime and mud to effectively clog any washing machine drain.  When we arrived home from conquering the world, mom refused to let us into the house.  We had to strip off outside before we came inside.  The clothes, the boots, and the dirt were left outside.  The results of our great adventure prevented us from coming home and entering mom's clean house.  We had to remove all the dirt and grime before we could enter.

Does this sound vaguely familiar?  As kids we all did things and went places we shouldn't have.  However, as adults, we still do the same, especially in our walk with God.  As humans, we are constantly searching for things to satisfy our curiosity.  We want to know all that we can and sometimes that desire to know takes us into some dirty and smelly places.  Our sense of adventure causes us to wander away from God, to put on old clothes, old shoes, and go exploring in the ditches of the world.  We are so convinced we will find things of importance and things of significance that we joyfully abandon the comfort of home to go wade in a smelly, grimy, and filthy ditch.

At first, it is fun and exciting.  We see things we hadn't noticed before and we want to continue.  Finally, we realize we have wondered away from home, that there is nothing in the ditch worth searching for.  We are tired, cold, wet, smelly, and dirty.  Our condition has changed and we no longer look as we did when we were back home with mom and dad.  Jesus described this perfectly when he quoted a passage of scripture from the prophet Isaiah.  Matthew 15:7 records Jesus' words for us, "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me."

Although Jesus is addressing the Pharisees in particular, his words apply to all of us in general. These people, while paying tribute to God with their mouths, were wandering away from Him in their hearts.  Their words did not match their actions.  They had gone exploring in the ditches of tradition, religion, politics, power, and greed.  These ditches still exist today, along with many others, and are attractive to all of us.  However, we need to understand that they offer us nothing more than the opportunity to grow smelly and dirty.

We can always come back home, that's the good news!  The door is still open to us and our Father is ready to welcome us.  However, we must rid ourselves of the grime and filth found in the world's ditches.  We cannot enter His presence smelly and dirty.  We have to remove everything, all the dirt, all the grime, and all the filth before we come into His presence.  When we do this, we get new clothes, good food, a warm home, and a loving hug from God.  No ditch, no matter how inviting, is any substitute for that!