(The Vision that Runs Through My Head Whenever a Christian Is Accused of Arrogance for Claiming to Know God and that Jesus Is the Only Way to Him)

“It’s a beautiful day outside.  Walk with me.”

“Sure,” you respond, and within moments we are out the front door and wandering through town.

As we waltz along, enjoying the fresh air and conversation, a man runs up to us and says that Bill Gates (no symbolism intended) has just converted his $50 billion fortune to gold.  He’s piled all of it in the middle of a vacant lot a few blocks away and announced that anyone is free to go and take as much of it as they please.  He races off, headed for his home to get his wheelbarrow.

We don’t really believe such a preposterous story, but the address the man provided isn’t far out of our way, and we can’t help but allow our desire for the story to be true to overwhelm our rationality just enough to agree to go check it out.

When we arrive at the location, we find that there actually is a vacant lot before us in all likelihood, but it’s surrounded by a tall hedge of dense, tightly packed, nearly impenetrable bushes of unknown depth.  We see a few others who have obviously heard the same rumor trying to make their way through the hedge.  We agree that since we’re here, we might as well squeeze through ourselves to see if there really is a treasure to be had on the far side.  It would be a shame to miss out on the outside chance the story is true.  You start crawling and clawing your way into the hedge.  I’m about to follow, but just then the man we previously encountered returns.  He sees where I’m about to crawl into the hedge and directs me to a point several feet further down the line.  “Here,” he says, “this hedge isn’t easy to break through, but with some effort I was able to squeeze through right here.  The handful of others I encountered on the far side came through here as well.  No one has had much luck crawling through from anywhere else.”  So, I dive in as well, ten feet or so away from you. 

I can hear you complaining and swearing up a storm, and in just moments I’m singing the same song.  The hedge is so dense that we keep getting stuck.  It’s hard to move forward (or backward for that matter), and we get the additional joy of the occasional thorn and the frequent mosquito thrown in for added discomfort.  We stop to catch our breath for a moment, and then agree that we’re being played for fools.  There can’t possibly be a treasure of gold on the other side.  How could we even for a moment have entertained such an absurd notion?  We agree to cut our losses, retreat, continue on our walk, and never mention this to anyone lest we die of embarrassment.

Just as we begin extricating ourselves, I catch a brilliant sparkle of a golden gleam through the branches before me.  I tell you to sit still for a moment, explaining what I saw and that I need to make one more push to see if I can break through to find out what it is.  With my last bit of energy, I lunge forward, and after a few more feet of progress I topple through onto open ground scratched, bruised, bitten, and bloody, but nonetheless free…  and speechless.

Before me lies a pile of gold bars, chains, nuggets, and coins stretching for as far as I can see.  There is more gold before me than I previously imagined existed in the whole world!  After my raucous shouts and whoops return to a modest coherency, you hear me bellow that it’s all true, and some nonsense about more golden treasure than you could ever dream up.  You’re still highly skeptical and more than a little irritated thanks to the mosquitoes that you can’t free your hands well enough to squash, but you decide to press on.  After a bit more effort with no better results, you decide that the exertion and/or disappointment of not finding the promised treasure has obviously made me a little loopy.  You don’t mince words in describing this perspective to me as you start trying to back out of the stranglehold you’re in.

So, I find myself surrounded by a treasure more fabulous than I ever imagined, and I hear you calling from back in the bushes that I’m silly for thinking such a thing exists.  Deciding that the best way to disabuse you of that false notion is for you to see it for yourself, I turn to give you a hand through the hedge.  It’s at that moment that I realize why everyone that has succeeded in making their way through the hedge came through at the exact spot I did.  Just inside the hedge stands a tall, impregnable wall of solid granite.  This wall completely surrounds the lot.  The only break in the wall is a narrow opening just where the helpful man directed me to.  Even if a person succeeded in squeezing through the bushes anywhere else, the wall would bring them to a dead-end.  I note with some amazement that the hole in the wall is shaped like a man, as if someone worked up a full head of steam, played chicken with the wall, and the wall lost (not that I can imagine any mere mortal pulling off such a feat). 

I rush back to the wall’s narrow portal, describing in detail what I see on the other side, and that the only way to the treasure is for you to back up and start over from where I crawled through.  “You’re still going to have to make all the effort to get through,” I confess, “but I’ll stand right here and guide you.”  I hear you tumble back out of the bushes on the other side, but instead of starting over at the right spot, you announce that you’re going home.  You refuse to believe that attacking the hedge in one location is any more effective than another, and I’m completely arrogant to say otherwise.  Moreover, you point out that I must be crazy if I expect you to believe someone would surround their property with such a formidable wall without many wide and highly visible gates of entry.   As for the treasure, you remark that your wits have returned to you, and that you’re no longer buying such a preposterous tale.  Your first inclination is that I’m teasing you by reporting mountains of gold on the other side, but you know me well enough to know that I’m being serious.  You lovingly but patronizingly suggest I find a place out of the sun to cool down until I stop hallucinating.  As for you, you’re heading back home.

I call out that if you change your mind as I hope, you know where to find me and I'll be waiting to help, then I return to the wondrous sight before me.  I can’t decide what is more incredible.  The limitless treasure that’s been freely given to me, or the ridiculous charges of being delusional for believing in a treasure that I’m at this moment surrounded by and experiencing first hand and arrogant for claiming that my way is the only way to it.