The Costliness of Shortcuts

William Ray writes the following:

You may have heard about the man who, in September of 2003, decided to ship himself from New York City to Dallas—in a wooden crate! He somehow packed himself in the crate. The crate journeyed by truck, plane, and delivery van—until it finally arrived at his parents’ house. Then he began to break out of the box. When the authorities caught up to him, he explained that he was homesick. He thought it would be cheaper to get home by crate, rather than buy a ticket like everybody else.

What did he get for his troubles? A fine of $1,500 and 120 days of house arrest. At the cost of the fine, he could have purchased four roundtrip tickets to see his parents. How much simpler, and cheaper, it would have been to do the right thing in the first place.

We’re always looking for shortcuts. We want a shortcut to financial success. We’ll cut corners on home improvements to save a dollar or two. Let’s face it, we’re in an eBay, Amazon, Craigslist world where it’s becoming increasingly less of an ordeal to save money and time to get/do what we want.

However, this just won’t work when it comes to our salvation. Instead, if we try to cut corners to get to heaven, then we’ll have an eternal house arrest to think about how it would have been much easier to just do what God said to do.

God’s way is not always simple, but it’s the only way! Are you following his way? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Jn. 14:6).

–Neil Richey