Get the Experience!

Getting the experience of Silver Dollar City!

Get the Experience!

Have you been to the Meteor Crater in Arizona?  It wasn’t a scheduled stop for us, but I’d been pushing the family hard, and when Margaret (my wife) saw the sign she said, “The kids ought to see that!”  So, we took them in.

Well, Cal (my son-in-law) seemed bored with the whole thing.  To him it was just another hole in the ground.  So Margaret told him and Jenny (our daughter) we’d watch the baby so they and the kids could hike up to the top of the rim from the museum where we were, and see the whole thing.  When they got to the top, Cal looked as bored as before, so Margaret yelled up at them from the sidewalk, “Hey kids!”  And when they, and about 100 other people, looked down, Margaret yelled, “Get the experience!”  (Let me explain)  That’s an expression we used all the time when our kids were small!  If I’d gone to all the trouble and expense for them to see something, then they’d better get my money’s worth…get the experience!  Enjoy it as much as you can…learn everything you can…see it all…

Amy (our youngest daughter) wasn’t around when all this happened.  I have no idea where she was.  We spent a good deal of our time looking for Amy…waiting for Amy…worrying about Amy…wondering where she was, and what she might doing.  Anyway, where ever she was, she heard some people laughing and talking about a crazy woman who was yelling up at her kids on the Rim to “get the experience!”  So, when she saw Jenny back at the museum, she said, “Jenny, you should have heard what these people were saying about some crazy woman who was yelling at her kids to ‘Get the experience!  Get the experience!’  Jenny said, “Amy, that was Mom!”

So, as you may have guessed, “Get the experience!” became the theme of our whole trip.  Everywhere we took the kids…every stop we made, for whatever reason…someone said, “We know!  Get the experience!”

  “Get the experience!” would be a great theme for the Church!  If you are going to all of the trouble and expense to be a Christian, then you ought to experience everything Christianity has to offer!   Get your money’s worth!  Everything the bible endorses, you ought to experience.  Everything the Bible encourages, you ought to practice! 

Let me tell you one reason why it’s so important for us to get experience.  Experience is what removes all doubt!  It’s not exhortation that removes people’s doubts about God, its experience!  It’s not preaching the gospel to people that removes their doubts…its people practicing the gospel that removes all doubts! 

Acts 10:20, Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them.

                God wants us to experience everything He’s offering in the Word of God, and have no doubt about it!  I am a blessed man because I am experienced!   God has healed me of all kinds of sickness and injuries.  And, He’s used me to heal some other people.  I am blessed man!  God has delivered me from evil spirits & trouble.  And, He’s used me to cast out some evil spirits out of other people too... to help pray other people out of trouble!  I am a blessed man!  God has directed me.  He has told me where to go, what to do and what to say.  That’s walking in the Spirit!  That’s getting the experience!