Chapter ...Yesterday

I heard a great analogy of the human to God relationship the other day. I was talking with a friend and she was telling me about a concert she went to see. She had been waiting for this concert for months. She loved the artists songs and was totally psyched. She even waited to buy the newest CD because somehow it would be better--more special--if she could get it there. But to her great disappointment, the concert wasn't that amazing. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it was just... a concert. Afterwards she stood in outrageous lines to get her new CD signed. The first time she tried (at intermission) they had cut the line off before she could get up to the artist. So here she was again. You can probably guess what happened. They cut the line off for the second time. Completely dismayed she begged to be able to get in--she had waited twice now! Finally the attendant suggested she try to get in the other line. So she did. And finally got to meet the artist, who even excused himself from a group of fans to sign her CD (asking her name to make the note more personal) and took a picture with her. Still, in the end she walked away feeling a little let down by the whole experience and offhandedly commented to me that it made her realize that just because she listened to the music, and bought the CD and got it signed and had a picture taken, didn't mean that she had any real relationship with the artist it was all superficial. And I thought, "Oh my goodness! That's it!" As humans, we can hear about God from other people, we can know facts, we can have bumper stickers and t-shirts, and pictures of a Jesus (that ironically looks like he walked right out of our own ethnicity), and still not know God. And the scary part is that it's so easy to think that we do. So here's my question: How well do you really know God?