Ok so you know how when all your friends and family know you're taking a vacation and when you get back everyone either asks you how it was or if you had fun or any other variety of questions? Well have you ever gone somewhere and then been scared to answer those questions because the answer you want to give is not the one that everyone is probably expecting?
It's kind of like when you pass an acquaintance in the halls at church and they say "Good Morning, How are you?" Chances are they are just being polite and are wanting the typical response "Good, How are you?" but inside you are thinking about the real answer and about all the things that are not just good and you wonder what it would be like to actually say everything you're thinking.
This is exactly how I felt when we came home from Vegas.
I absolutely loved our weekend in Boulder City and at Red Rock Canyon. There were also lots of fun things during the week. Zach and I had some great food, we had fun being together and alone with little responsibilities, we got to watch the NCAA basketball finals at a sports book on the biggest screen I've ever seen not in a football stadium, lying by a pool and reading a book was a treat so rare that I actually couldn't remember the last time I had gotten to do it, we went to the movies and got dressed up and talked without being interrupted, and even seeing the iconic sites of Vegas like the neon welcome sign and bellagio fountains and other things you see in all the movies was cool.
But, everywhere we went and everything we saw gave me an underlying heavy heart. I don't want to act or sound judgmental or holier than thou like God doesn't exist in Vegas or that someone who goes and likes it has obviously lost their salvation. I know plenty of people who have gone or want to go and have a wonderful faith. Just like I know that God can and is working in the hearts of people in every corner of the world.
I just mean FOR ME, it was hard. It hurt. And it's hard to describe why. It was sensory overload with lights and noise and people. Everything was built to attract your attention, to draw you in and to be bigger and better than whatever it was built next to. Anything that is trying to attract you is also trying to distract you from something else and in my heart I just thought about the many people who are being distracted from Truth because they are being attracted to things that they think will fill them. Things that only work very temporarily.
I thought this because I struggle with the same things on a daily basis. Trying to fill yourself with anything other than Christ only succeeds in making your feel empty.
So if you have already asked me or are planning on asking me how our trip was, my answer is it was good and bad, it was hard and relaxing, it was nice and difficult, it was thought provoking and convicting, it was everything God wanted me to see and think to expand my heart and mind and to draw me closer to Him.
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