The past few weeks, I’ve been frequenting one
of HK’s most secluded beaches on my day off. It is in a part of town called Sai
Kung. It takes over 2 hours to get to this beach from my house, including a 10
minute bus ride, a 40 minute train ride, a 20 minute minibus ride, a 20 minute
cab ride, and a 45 minute hike. I was talking with a friend the other day about
following Christ, and I used an illustration form the hike to this beach. I
didn’t think it was too special, but my friend said I need to post it on here,
so here it is:
Following Jesus is a process. We don't become
Jesus once we get saved. We begin a journey of becoming more like Him.
It’s kind of like the hike to the beach in Sai
Kung. When you’re walking there, a lot of the hike is annoying and painful. At
one point in the hike, you reach a point where you catch a glimpse of what
you're walking towards, a beautiful beach. As you see this view, it gives you
the strength to keep going, knowing that your walking is not in vain. Sometimes
on the hike, you have long stretches where you're walking downhill and it's
very scenic. During these times, the walk is great. At other times, the walk is
all uphill and there's no scenery and you have to keep walking to reach your
goal. You know if you turn around and look at where you just came from, you can
enjoy the scenery there, but turning around doesn’t help you get to your
destination, so you have to keep walking.
When you get to the end of the hike, you sit
at the restaurant on the beach, which has one of the most amazing views of any
restaurant on earth, you eat your food, you jump off the waterfalls that are
next to the beach into the deep, cool water below them, you toss a frisbee on
the beach, you swim in the ocean, and you realize all the work and pain that it
took to get to this place was worth it.
I think with God, there are times where He
gives us glimpses of Himself, and those times give us the strength to keep
following Him. In other times, it's hard to see Him, and following Him is hard,
and so we try to look back to see if the "scenery" is any better
where we just came from. But His call is to keep going, even if we can't see
where we're going and even if the road gets hard. One day, we'll be with Him,
and it will be awesome, and we'll realize why we went through all we went
through on the way. But until then, there are some really tough times.
I hope that makes sense and encourages all who
read it to keep going!
