How Close Are You To God?

Suppose you were given a choice between two lives that you could live.

In the first choice, you could have essentially everything that you wanted all your life. You would live in a splendid palace with a staff of servants. No luxury would be denied to you. A plane would be on standby to take you anywhere in the world you wanted to go. There would be no work you were required to do unless you wanted to. You would have a life of exquisite luxury and would live in excellent health to a ripe old age. The only thing you would have to agree to is that you could not go to heaven when you died.

In the second choice, you would have a life of misery. You would have to beg to get enough money for food. You would never have a real home and would have to sleep anywhere you could. Life would never be without physical infirmities and illness. But when it was over, you would get a welcome reception in heaven.

Which life would you choose?

In another example, I have found what I believe is the simplest way to get an idea how close you are to God. Suppose that there are two trees in a meadow or park maybe thirty meters apart. One tree represents the ways of the world and the other represents the Ways of God. When you look at the two trees from a distance, they look fairly close together. That means that the standards and values of the world are not really that much different from the standards of God.

But as you move closer to God, there seems to be more and more distance between the ways of God and those of the world. The closer you get, the more alien and further away the ways of the world seem. Finally when you really get close to God, the ways of the world are so different and alien that they are not even in your field of vision.

Suppose someone asks you the simple yet complex question "What are you?" What will your answer be? If you are close to God at all, that will be your answer. If your answer is your nationality or ethnic group or any other answer, that indicates a great distance from God.