“I thought you said we were going to church today,” The five year old looked across the breakfast table at the rumpled father. They had got up late and all were still in their bedclothes. They had gone to a movie the night before and this Sunday morning was beginning in a typical way.
“That’s what I intended,” replied Dad, “But I was so sleepy when the alarm went off, I just couldn’t make myself get up.” The family had not attended a church service for several weeks, although each Saturday they all agreed, “We’ve got to start doing better.”
For some, the pursuit of pleasure is the god they serve. For others, materialism and peer pressure are the things that stand between them and a close relationship with God. For some, though, it’s just a matter of not showing up – not only for worship, but also not showing up for any efforts to make their lives and their children’s have any spiritual meaning. They talk a good game. But they don’t show up when the whistle blows.
A rhetorical question is asked in Hebrews 2:3 “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? Which at the first having been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.” The answer is so obvious that none can be given satisfactorily and none need be given.
The race of life will be lost to many who have the best of intentions to turn things around someday. But like the hare in the fable, they are waiting around with the thought that there is plenty of time before beginning to run. And the longer neglect continues, the more difficult it is to show up for the real race.
