With boots untied and a serious need to pee, I jogged past the visitor center, tripod tucked under my arm. I glanced at the time: 5:16 AM. I was hurrying to make it to Bright Angel Point, to watch the sun come up over the Grand Canyon. It was set to rise at 5:22. I got to a spot with a great view east and west, and set up the camera.
Then Marge showed up.
I shouldn’t know her name. I shouldn’t know that she has traveled to Africa and Alaska and the Alps. I also shouldn’t know that she has no desire to go to the Himalayas and that her favorite thing in the world is dessert in Italy.
I know all of that, from sitting about 30 feet from her watching the sun come up over the world’s most famous canyon.
That’s when it hit me. I am Marge. So caught up on myself and how cool I am that I can’t even enjoy what is going on in front of me. See, Marge didn’t come to the Grand Canyon to see the Grand Canyon. She came to the Grand Canyon to be able to later, sitting on a boat floating over the Great Barrier Reef, tell someone how beautiful the sun is when it comes up over the Grand Canyon.
And I do the same thing. In the first paragraph of this post I wanted you the reader to see how well traveled I am. I want to see the world, so that the world can see me. If I could figure out how to make it revolve around my shoulders, I would.
What a loss it would be to get to the end of my life, stand before Jesus, and tell him how many cities I have visitied, or how many pushups I can do, or how great my magnet collection is.
It’s my prayer that the gospel will continue to change me, and that someday I will actually be more about bringing God glory than about building my list of accomplishments.
But while we are on the subject of my accomplishments, and I can now claim to have peed into the Grand Canyon, just before sunrise.