Missed it by that much...

When I was a kid I used to love to watch "Get Smart", the secret agent series with Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, the Barney Fife of the spy world. It was "Chaos" (the bad guys) versus Control (the good guys) but it always seemed that Control was the organization that was in chaos. I'll never forget Smart's shoe phone or "the cone of silence". One of Smart's favorite things to say was "Missed it by that much." He would hold his index finger and thumb really close together and then say this phrase whenever he almost caught the criminal.
When we visited Seattle on our recent trip out west, we attended a Seattle Mariners / Colorado Rockies game at beautiful Safeco Field. It turned out to be a "missed it by that much" kind of game for the Mariners. The game was close the whole way and then went into extra innings. In the 11th inning, the Rockies scored two runs to take the lead. In the bottom of the 11th inning, the most popular Mariners player, Ichiro, hit a home run to make it a 4-3 game. The next player after him made the the second out. The next player got a hit which gave the Mariners on person on base with their cleanup hitter, Raul Ibanez" up to bat. Ibanez came oh so close to hitting a walkoff homerun, but the Rockies' centerfielder caught his hit on the warning track.
Game over. "Missed it by that much." The gap between winning and losing for the Mariners was about 10 feet. Raul Ibanez hit the ball 390 feet, but he needed to hit 400 feet.
The Bible teaches that there is a much bigger gap between God and man. The gap is caused by man's lack of trust in God and the sin that is the result of that lack of trust. This gap is much bigger than the gap at Safeco Field that afternoon.
The good news is that the essence of the Gospel is that Jesus came to bridge the gap between us and our Heavenly Father. 1 Timothy 2:5,6 says, "There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all men." No one is good enough to bridge this gap on their own. No one is perfect like God, but Jesus built a bridge across the gap with His cross.
The cross is everything. We need it to begin as a follower of Christ, because we need the forgiveness of the cross to have a relationship with God. We need it every day because our hearts by nature do not trust God. We constantly need the cleansing power of the cross to help us move ahead in trusting God. The only way to enjoy a relationship with God is by daily embracing teh cross of Christ.
Don't live a "missed it by that much" kind of life. Every daym, humbly admit the gap between your goodness and God's goodness. Enbrace the cross and with deep-hearted gratitude, enjoy Christ's rich life.