I decided recently that I should follow Bill Keane’s cartoon, Family Circus, more faithfully. So many profound lessons are couched in humor. Keane models the cartoon after his own family: Thelma, his wife, and their children, Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and P.J. The children are fictionalized composites of the children. With the exception of P.J., no characters have aged appreciably during the run of the strip.
In a recent rendering Bill and the four children are all struggling as they climb a rough, steep hill. Holding one of the children in his left arm, Bill pulls another with his right, and the other two are struggling to make it on their own. With a look of desperation on his face, the one being pulled asks pleadingly, Why do they hafta put all the good views on top of hills?
I can identify with his sentiment. Recently I spent four days in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I got the sense that the higher you were the more breath taking the view. But that is not why I‘m sharing this. Years of living have taught me that “good views,” or the “best things in life, are “at the top” and usually come through discipline and struggle.
Jesus made it clear, Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)
There is no mistaking the meaning. There is in life a broad and easy way. Most of us take that way most of the time. There is a narrow and hard way…it is that way that gets us to the “good views.” Too few of us take that way. Take some time today to ponder how all of this applies to your living the Christian life.