When boys miss the bus

This morning I watched a kid, maybe 6 or 7 years old, curly blond hair, face full of freckles come streaking down the hill outside our kitchen window. Actually, I heard him before I saw him, he was screaming at the top of his little lungs, STOP, STOP, STOP. By now our whole family was at the window to watch the drama unfold. The big yellow school bus had waited it's last few seconds before it began to roar up the hill away from our front yard. It left a sad little boy, with a pack-sack as big as he was in the middle of the road in a cloud of diesel exhaust. We called down to make sure his mom was home and he assured us she was while looking a bit dazed by the whole episode.
I think it would be safe to say we've all shared in this little man's dilemma. We have all been late for something, sometimes being late turns out ok and our moms drive us to school. However, sometimes being late can be very costly. Sometimes what we're late for has such magnitude, such enormous importance that to miss it is to miss out on life itself. I'm talking about missing the opportunity to make peace with God. To experience a dynamic relationship with the Almighty. To miss this opportunity is to miss out not only on eternity with him but it is to miss him in the here and now. To miss his wonderful life giving presence and his grace and power to serve and help the rest of humanity experience his full and free life now before it is too late. Believe me you don't want to miss the bus on this issue!