Reviews and Warnings

One of the great thing about the church I serve with is that our Senior Pastor encourages our staff to take the occasional Weekend of Rest (a WOR as I normally refer to it). Now, granted, I do not take them as often as I probably should. Truth be told - most of our staff rarely even takes one! But I was motivated to take one this past weekend. Which is WAY EASIER when you have amazing volunteers and other staff members that are willing to pick up your place and (most of the time) do an even better job than I do!

My family and I decided to take the 3 hour drive to Indy! There are several churches in Indy and several mega churches, at that! We decided to visit Traders Point which looked like an exciting place to worship. Their children's programming looked fun - PLUS - they have a Saturday evening service which meant this pastor was 'sleeping in on Sunday!' (What?! Sometimes even pastors wouldn't mind a Sunday off here and there…) AND - we found a cool hotel online that had an indoor water park. We had been to Big Splash Adventure in French Lick, IN and thought this one looked a lot like it! We were excited!

The day started off great! The kids were great during the drive, traffic and construction weren't bad at all. We even had Chick fil a for lunch! All we had to do was check into our hotel, change our clothes, go to church, eat a delicious burger, go back to the hotel and water park it away! This was going to be an amazing family time away! But then we actually arrived at our hotel. We both looked at each other and said the same thing: "This is not what I expected…" We checked in at the front desk and the lobby was nice. The hotel had a lot of charm so I thought maybe it was just the exterior that was starting to be run down a bit. But then we walked into the hallway. We shimmied up the elevator - looked at wall paper falling off the walls - and finally made it to our room. Now I must admit - our room was nice, comfortable, and clean. You could just tell it was 'old.'

We decided it was going to be fine. We got dressed, went to a wonderful service, had a delicious (and unhealthy) burger at Bagger Dave's, and came back ready for a couple hours in the indoor water park. That's when our disappointment truly began to take set in. We walk in the doors and it is PACKED full of people. Kids running rampant with absolutely no parental supervision. Teenage lifeguards walking around utterly clueless not giving me any sense of safety and security for me and my family. The water play land was shut down cause some kid 'had to go #2' and apparently didn't want anyone else to have fun if they couldn't! Fender was excited about the water slides (which we loved in French Lick) but as we got to the top of the stairs we find out that none of them are able to go 2 people. Not even a father and his 4 year old son. Fender was really stoked to try one of the slides so I said I'd go down first and catch him at the bottom. I'll save this experience for another blog here soon - but let's just say he was pale, frightened, and screaming when he came into my arms at the bottom. How could we (or better said I) have been so wrong about this?! The website looked so promising!

And then I checked the reviews a little closer in our room that night. I should have done that before I booked the room! People were begging… Even pleading for people not to stay there. They said the rooms weren't that great - that the lobby was misleading - that the water park wasn't safe and the lifeguards were incompetent… What was I thinking?! I brought my family to a place like this when there were countless people trying to warn me with their reviews?! Needless to say I struggled with some emotions the rest of the night as the protector and provider of my family. I let them down because I didn't research enough and heed the warning of other wearied travelers. I missed the reviews and warnings.

But while I just had a bad hotel experience (I also should say that my kids had a great time and it ended up being a weekend we have laughed at a lot since) - so many people are missing the reviews and warnings about their eternal soul. In a world that is bombarded with a 'do whatever with no consequences' attitude - they are choosing to ignore the warnings of God's Word. "There is no judgement against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone that does not believe in Him has already been judged for NOT believing in God's One and Only Son." (John 3:18 NLT)

There it is! The reviews and warnings. That if you don't believe in and pledge your life to following Jesus Christ - you are in for a disaster! And not just an overpriced, low quality hotel stay - but the danger of total separation from God and an eternity of judgement. It's too risky to not be curious about something this important and of this much consequence. A bad weekend getaway pales in comparison to being plunged into eternal damnation - all because you didn't check the reviews. So where are planning on spending eternity? Are you sure you're on the right path? Have you checked the reviews and warnings? I hope so...