Camping

 

My wife and I spent our first anniversary camping in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.  We borrowed a 4 ½ foot pup tent, and a propane grill.  We arrived late at night at Cades Cove, and it was raining.  In fact, it was so late and so nasty that the park ranger had gone to bed.  I put the tent up facing uphill (by mistake) and it filled with water during the night.  Our blankets, sleeping bags, and clothes were drenched.  We got up too early and too wet in the morning only to find that I had left the propane tank at home.  We rolled up our wet tent and left for Gatlinburg before the park ranger got up.  Our anniversary celebration was breakfast at a restaurant in Gatlinburg.  Hey, what is the appeal of camping?  Why do we go to such lengths just to rough it?  I think that the appeal of camping is a back-to-the-basics desire that we all have.  We all long for a simpler life.  Then why do we fill our houses with gadgets, our closets with clothes, and our garages with cars too expensive to afford?  Our idea of self-indulgence is at odds with our longing for a simpler life.  Jesus said in Matthew 6:25, “… Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?”  Hey, life is more than stuff.  There is an eternity facing each of us.  So, where will you spend eternity?  Heaven with God, or … ?  Jesus went on to say in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  Put God first in your life, and you’ll never be sorry that you did.