We just spent a memorable, fun week with my family at Disney World. A wonderful gift from my parents that I am very thankful for. I shared several pictures on social media from the trip and God has put on my heart to tell you my real thoughts on Disney World, “the happiest, magical place on earth.”
A couple of years ago Matt and I took our oldest son when it was just the three of us. When I got home from that trip I had this amazing amount of guilt that we would spend so much of our resources to vacation together when those resources could have been sent to the take the gospel to the unreached or serve the vulnerable. It’s a battle I still face in my mind and heart really every time I spend money on any luxury. Please know I am not saying its wrong to vacation…we just did it! It’s always the longings of the heart. What/Who am I chasing after? I battle all the time should we move to have a less mortgage so we can give more. I have to check my heart in the why am I spending money on whatever it may be from a $5 coffee drink to a house. I have to ask am I making that luxury an idol on my heart to satisfy me? Where am I laying up my treasures? Last year I had to turn from buying any article of clothing for a whole year because my heart attitude in the why I was buying something was all about me. No thing, no vacation, no person, no meal, nothing can quench the thirst in my soul except for Christ himself. And if we try to fill up on the things of this world we will be so distracted, so full that we won’t be hungry for the Bread of Life that alone satisfies the longings of our souls.
A trip to Disney World with your kids might be the epitome of the American Dream. Let me tell you though, dreams end and what’s only in Christ remains. For I have tasted and seen and there is something far better in Jesus. As I walked the streets in Disney World what I saw at times broke my heart. I saw so many parents yelling at their kids in the worst of ways and the Holy Spirit convicted me that I also do the same in different ways even at Disney World. You see special kinds of tantrums. You experience hot, crowded streets and long bus rides. Matt’s activity app said we walked about 10 miles average each day and our backs felt the effects of it. In the “Happiest place on earth” there is much brokenness. You see the effects of the fall of man when Adam and Eve listened to Satan in the garden. God had told Adam and Eve if they ate of the tree in the garden “They would surely die.” God is always true to his Word. He always keeps His promises. And so after this first sin we see sickness, death, sorrow effect man. The wages of sin is death and we are all born under the curse of sin. God alone is holy and sin can not be in his presence and this first sin separated all of mankind from God.
The moment we are conceived we are sinners, born children of darkness. No one is born a child of God. Now each person is made by God, knit together in their mothers womb by God and known by God but no one is born his child. We are only adopted into Gods family by grace through faith in Christ alone. It is because of what Jesus did on that cross in Calvary 2,000 something years ago and rising from the dead that we may live when we turn to him in faith. While we were still sinners Christ died for us.
So as I walked the streets of Disney I thought about all of this as I looked at all the people God has created in his image, that he loves, that Christ paid the death penalty for drinking the cup of the wrath of God wondering if they had ever heard of his great love for them. I wondered if they had turned to Him or wondered if they were still filling the longings of their heart with things of this world, that can never satisfy and only lead to death. And I pray, Lord your Kingdom Come quickly.
For I have been to the happiest, places on earth and it’s not Disney World. The happiest places are the places you see the Light shining in the darkness. The places you see children who were once in darkness stepping into the Kingdom of God becoming children of Light. And there is no magic to it. It is the power of God bringing people into his eternal family. It’s reality. And there is nothing else that can hold a candle to it.
May you have a wonderful weekend worshipping our Risen, Lord and King!
~Lane
Also if you are unsure what the gospel is this 20 minute video from David Platt is very well worth a listen. It starts at about 30 second mark:) https://www.facebook.com/Radical.net/videos/1468852606556626/?hc_ref=ARS1s6rn_T9e1MzCK3afMvg_ChWmzNVVUL4esYHYH9LD8Bpwx91uvcBFAXHV7txLcFI
Eyes Fixed on Jesus 