Has there been an occasion in your life where your forgetfulness resulted in a regrettable experience?
When I was a teenager, I and a friend spent our summers working at Camp Blue Haven. One afternoon, we decided to hike to Marble Falls, a scenic waterfall located about 5 miles from camp. We made it to the Falls without any trouble and spent a couple of hours scaling the rocks, playing in the water, and taking in the view. Our return trek to Camp should have been as uneventful, but our forgetfulness got us lost.
The trail from the Falls to Camp followed a long box canyon along a rugged dirt road for about a mile. At that point, a large outcropping of rock to the left marked the place where one was to leave the road and follow a loosely marked trail through the forest to several meadows and over a ridge line into Camp.
My friend and I were so familiar with this trail, we could walk it in our sleep. But, on this one day, we weren't paying attention. We decided to race each other down the long box canyon down the rugged dirt road. In our competition, we ran past the outcropping of rock that marked the trail head. I don't know how far we ran before we realized our mistake . . . one mile? . . . two miles? . . . I don't know.
We stopped and thought about what we ought to do. Obviously, we should have turned around and walked back to the trail head. Our choice: cut cross country in the direction we thought Camp was located. Well . . . 8 hours and probably 15 miles late we arrived back at Camp! If we had only remembered to look for the Rock!
Our forgetfulness didn't cost us much, just a day lost in the woods. But, what is the cost when one forgets God?
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