if they only knew what they were reaching for...

Some of us from church went down to Daytona Beach last night and handed out tracts to the spring-breakers and those attending the Audio show. Jessica came up with the design of the tracts based on something we had been given while in New York for New Year's, which Christina reminded her of a few days ago. Anyway, the tracts were really cool... they were postcard-sized and on the front just had a picture of a person running down the beach and said "I spent my spring break in Daytona Beach 2004." The back had the real message on it. It started by asking, "Do you know where you'll spend eternity?" and gave many other verses and statements/questions. What was cool about handing them out, especially at the audio show, was that people are more than willing to take something that's free. Several of the guys working the tables at the audio show even came up to us and asked to have some of the cards (probably not having any idea what the were). One guy, however, started to read the back of one and then asked if he could have some more to give to the guys working with him! How awesome! Something that Erica mentioned about an instance while we were walking back to our cars was really cool, too: we were handing out the cards to the people we passed as we walked along the sidewalk, and one guy reached for a card but missed it, so he had to do an extended reach before he actually got one. Erica later was like, "if he only knew what he was straining to reach, that would be so incredible." Indeed it would. That image stuck in my mind with extra meaning for the rest of the night. I saw this miscellaneous guy stretching with all his might toward something that he knew was worth having, yet not quite realizing that what he was truely reaching for was Christ. It's like the story of Paul in Acts where he goes to Athens and sees that they have an alter to "the unknown god." The people knew that there was "something more" that they needed and that deserved worship, but they didn't quite know what it was. That's the feeling I get when I think about that guy stretching to reach the card. Our vain attempts to reach God on our own. By His grace alone...