Cave Tour!

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup... Psalms 16:5
             I like caves.  Ones where you can crawl around on your hands and knees are the best.  All cave visitors are completely equal when they drive up.  But the choices they make at tour desk will change how they experience the cave.  All the tours are different.  They are different lengths.  They vary in difficulty.  Some of the surfaces are as smooth as a level can make them.  Others as rough as the flood left them.  Some tours stay to shallow levels of the cave.  Others explore deeper, neglected tunnels.  They vary in their costs of money,  time, and personal comfort.  But every tour requires something of the tour-taker – a sacrifice.  Most tours are popular but a few take the paths that are rarely seen. 
            Most patrons of the cave will “experience” the cave only in the most cursory way possible.  In under an hour they will see, not touch, the dark recesses of the cave from a distance. They will never venture any further than the safety of the paved, railed, concrete path, And many do not even ever wish to go deeper.  No dirt on their hands.  No mud on their shoes.  They made a small investment, a minuscule sacrifice, and reaped a corresponding return.
            But some will invest the money and the time to delve into the cave – off trail.  They will touch, bump, and slide through the cave.  No safety net, they will bruise.  They will push themselves to go further.  Covered in dirt.  Mud on their shoes.  This is the wild tour.  She is the most extreme tour offered but in life, in faith, in service we can dive much deeper into God.
            All Christians come to salvation equally.  Sinners.  Saved.  Secure.  That is the starting gun.  How long we search is up to us.  How intensely we seek is our decision.  We choose how deeply we immerse.  The safe, low road or the risky, high one, we decide.  What we will sacrifice, we determine.  The extent we deny ourselves to love God is our prerogative.
            Lord, help me reach with Your hands and touch with Your love.  Let me leave the safety net behind to venture farther into You.  Let the dirt on my hands show the love of my Lord.  Let the mud on my shoes demonstrate my sincerity of heart.  Father, let me hurt with Your pain.  Help me go further in my resolve, deeper into the recesses of You, and seek You harder than others would say is permissible.  Lord, I seek a life-long trek into the treasures of Who You are!