Last week our family enjoyed a vacation week together in the Black Hills. We visited such iconic places as Mt. Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Devil’s Tower National Monument and Custer State Park. It was a week filled with making memories, enjoying one another’s company and the beauty of creation. There were no shortage of photo opps. Some of them were staged, others presented themselves at scenic vistas, and some just developed.
The following photo was taken on The Needles Highway in Custer State Park. This is a scenic and winding drive through some unique geological features of that part of the Black Hills, and includes a couple of very narrow tunnels or passageways that have been cut out of the rock for vehicular passage.
We just happened to be the next vehicle behind this bus size RV as it carefully squeezed it’s way through the Iron Creek Tunnel on the Needle’s Highway. I’ll confess that I wasn’t sure it was going to make it, and I wondered at the moxi of the driver who, despite multiple road sign warnings before commitment to this route, was determined to try his luck.
As I watched and snapped the pics, this Scripture came to mind: “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt 19:24 NIV) In truth this verse has always kind of bothered me. It’s not that I’m rich, or even hang around with those of great wealth, but it just always seemed Jesus was calling out the affluent with his camel, eye of a needle, hyperbole. And of course he was – and is. An abundance of provisions or resources in life can lull us into a false confidence that we do not need anything or anyone – including the grace of God. Much of western civilization today knows this false confidence in comparison to much of the world. We are living under the illusion, too often, that we are self dependent.
But ususally an event or challenge will confront even the most misled among us along life’s way and reveal the falsity of such thinking. We find ourself trying to drive our metaphorical RV through a tight spot without scratching or dismembering it. We may even stop and seek reassurance that we’re going to make it. We might even ask for help.
The Scripture doesn’t say it’s impossible for the rich, or falsely overconfident, to enter the “Kingdom of God”, just that’s it’s challenging for those of us who are living in some type of affluence to admit our need for the grace, forgiveness, help, salvation that God’s Kingdom is associated with.
The good news is the guy in the bus size RV made it, not just through this tunnel, but an even trickier one that came up the road. That’s good news metaphorically as well for those who live in the affluence of a land of plenty, which includes more of us than we may want to admit.
Photos by Daniel M. Cash – Custer State Park, South Dakota – Needles Highway
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