The man worked hard trying to get ahead in this world. He knew he was working too hard but he wanted the money. He wanted to be the one in the room with the most. He liked showing off what he had. He used his money as a weapon to get what he wanted and make others do what he wanted them to do.

Looking at the work he still needed to get done before he could go home he felt the stress rising in him as he tried to work faster. He felt a strange feeling rising up in him like he just wanted to get some rest. For some reason he was feeling very tired all of a sudden, which was very unlike him.

A wave of fatigue came over him and he found himself on the ground as he went into a deep sleep.

Waking with a start he found himself outside in a wilderness where the sun did not penetrate very much. He could see but it was hard making anything out because it was dark with a lot of fog swirling around. It felt cold as he got up, wondering how he got here. He then asked himself, “Where am I and how did I get here?”

Looking around the trees and bushes were very dense so he could not see far, even with the little light there was he just couldn’t see much of anything. Fear was starting to rise as he tried to think of what to do. He had always known what to do and without anyones help. He thought to himself, “I can get through this the same way I’ve done my whole life.”

He thought he needed to get out of this wilderness and find a way home. “Well”, he thought “I need to decide on a direction and get going.” Looking around he thought “It all looks the same, I’m going have to pick a direction and start walking.”

He picked the way he was facing and started to walk. He seemed to have walked for what he thought was a very long time and he didn’t know if he was just going around in circles or making any progress at all. Fear rose up in him again and he started to panic not being in control of the situation he was in.

He started crying with the emotions he was having as he just kept walking on endlessly not knowing if he was making any progress at all. He felt he wasn’t in control and he didn’t like that one bit.

Finally he cried out in fear and frustration, “God help me, I’m afraid and need help.” He grew very mad at himself for not knowing what to do and crying out to God. “God”, he thought “has never helped me before so why did I call out to Him now?”

He did not like not having control over what was going on in his life at the moment because he always was the master of his life.. He got madder and madder as he just walked around in the fog. He was about to cry out again when he thought he saw a light over his right shoulder and a little ways off.

It was hard to tell if the light was real or his imagination with the fog swirling in around him. Moving towards what he thought must be a light he felt energized to be making some progress. He knew now he was still in control of his life, even in this crazy place. The fog lifted as he got closer and closer to the light he knew was real now.

To the man the light looked soft and soothing but it shown so bright it seemed it hurt his eyes to even look at it. The man was almost running now with anticipation as the source of the light came into sharp view. He stopped so fast he fell over and landed face down in the wet wild grass that covered this wilderness floor.

Looking up, he saw a man sitting on a rock looking down at him curiously with this great light that just seemed to come from within him. The light hurt his eyes and he looked away as he got up. Brushing off the dirt and dampness he looked over at the man sitting on the rock. Using his hand to block the light he was stunned and without words as he looked at the man.

The questions seemed to come all at once, ‘Who are you, Where am I, How can you make that light coming from you, How can I get out of here.?”

The man sat and looked at him and spoke: “I am a shepherd and I am looking for my lost sheep. You are in a wilderness you made for yourself. The light you see that’s hurting your eyes is something you can’t understand yet. I hope to change that here and help you understand the light. I hope to help you understand who I am and why that matters to you greatly. I cannot help you to get out of here, but I can help you find the path that will lead you to where you chose to go.”

Hearing there is a path the man asked impatiently “Where, where is this path?” Looking over his shoulder the man sitting on the rock said “That is the way to the path.” He now knew there was a path and the path was past the strange man on the rock in the direction he was now facing. He looked at the strange man as he started running in the direction of the path and soon found it. Laughing and jumping up and down the man celebrated finding the path he looked for so long. He told himself what a good job he did. “I knew,” he said to himself, “I’d find the damned path!”

The laughter soon stopped as he was looking up and down the path he was standing on. “Oh crap, which way should I go?” He then thought “maybe I should have asked that strange guy back there if he knew which way to go? Aw, no matter,” he said to himself as he looked to his right and started off knowing that was the right way to go. He thought as he walked, “I’ve gotten into a lot worse and came out ok, Ill be fine.”

He walked on for a long time and was getting concerned again when he saw something up ahead. Up ahead he saw a light again coming from something on the path. “What could this be?” he thought.

As he got to where the light was coming from he saw that strange man again standing at a crossroads looking at him. The man looked at the strange man and at the right path and then over to the left path. He thought to himself “the left path looks like it is a short cut and flat ground easy to walk on” so he took off to the left smiling at the stranger as he passed.

Walking along this path it did seemed flat and easy to walk on so he was happy and told himself he had made a good move going this way. The thought popped into his head for second, “what the heck was that man doing there and how did he get ahead of me so fast?” He picked up the pace a little not wanting that strange man to get ahead of him again.

He walked for a night and a day and was starting to feel a little fear rising up in his stomach as he walked on. Looking around, the wilderness closed in all around him and the fear grew. As night fell on the second night he saw a light ahead of him on the path. “No,” he said, “it can’t be him again, it isn’t possible.”

He came up to the strange man glowing with the light that lit up the whole area around them. Because of the light the man saw he was at another crossroads and saw something shining over down the right path. He asked the strange man “Is that gold down there?” The stranger looked over down the road and said “Yes.”

Running down the road he looked over his shoulder to see if the other man would follow him and want some of this gold. He stopped and stared. “No, he’s not following, he’s just standing there looking at me.” Running on he soon got to the gold he saw shining from the light. It was beautiful and there was so much he couldn’t believe his eyes.

After picking up as much as he could he started to walk down the path again and he started thinking of all the things he would buy with this gold and how his friends would be so jealous. “Yes,” he thought, “I’m going to live like a king when I get home. I’ll have others to do my work. I will never have to work again. I hope that guy back there doesn’t take any of my gold,. I’ll be back for the rest as soon as I can before that guy takes it for himself.”

Walking on, the gold was hard to carry but he wasn’t going to put any of it down if it killed him. The next morning he came out into a clear area where he could see all around him. He saw no one and nothing and he smiled and said “Good, no one to try and take my gold.” As the sun climbed he saw once again a light brighter then the sun shining ahead of him. Once again he saw a crossroads and that strange man standing between the left and right paths lit by the light.

Coming up to the crossroad he saw the path on the right went through a dark heavy wooded area he didn’t like. Too many places for robbers to hide in there. Looking to the left he couldn’t believe what he saw, the path was filled with food of every sort and mixed between the food was what looked like silver. Running up to it, down the left path he saw, yes, silver all over the place. He scattered the food to get at the silver, throwing the food out of the way he tore into the silver.

He started walking down the left path when he could carry no more silver, the food on the sides of the path was spoiled and smashed but he had what he wanted and no one would get it from him. He thought “What luck coming down the left path to get all that I wanted and deserve, What luck” he said, “what luck!”

The man walked on as he thought about the riches he had and what he would do with them when he got home. He walked on a very long time before he realized how long it must have been. Stopping, he looked around and all he could see was the path, there was nothing on ether side of him or above him. How can there be nothing on the sides or above the path?

He looked to the sides and up at what should be the sky and down at the path and all he could see was white, nothing more just white. “That’s impossible” he said and tried to walk off the path he was on. He hit a wall and bounced back and fell onto the path again. Stunned, he got up and looked at the wall. He held his hand up and felt the smooth walls and ceiling.

Looking behind him and in front of him he now knew this went on and on. He thought, “I was so busy thinking about the gold and silver I never noticed when the walls and ceiling started.”

“Well,” he said to himself “if I go back I will see when this all started but if I go forward I will probably see a way out of all this.” Starting off with determination he walked on. He was in a square white tunnel he thought and he didn’t know what to do, or how this was even possible.

Walking on all thought of riches was gone as he just wanted to get out of the tunnel. As he walked farther, he started to see the walls and ceiling were beginning to get brighter and it looked like a light up ahead was filling the tunnel. As he walked on the light bathed him and it hurt his eyes and he felt a warmth inside him from the light.

Closing his eyes because of the pain, he bumped into a door in front of him and fell back in pain. Barely making out the white door because of the bright light he felt it. “Smooth and warm to the touch” he thought. “What does this mean, how can there be a door here, and what is on the other side of it?” he thought.

Not knowing what else to do, he knocked lightly not knowing what would happen. Waiting a few minutes he knocked harder this time and the door opened with an even more blinding intense light. Out stepped someone and the man heard the door shut. Standing before the man was the stranger once again bathed in the light that was coming from him. The stranger asked, “What do you want?” The man told the stranger “I want to pass through the door and be on my way. The stranger laughed and said ‘What is there past this door that has to do with you?’

The man answered, “I just want to get to where I belong.” The man grew tired of this and just wanted to go home and said “You’ve been following me all this time and may even have taken some of my gold and silver for all I know. What good reason is there to not let me in through that door?”

The stranger nodded his head and said, “That is a very good question and I will answer you. I am not following you, but you should have been following me. I have seen you as you are–angry, lazy, greedy, jealous, gluttonous, lustful, selfish, prideful and arrogant and so much more. You are a lier and a thief. All that matters little if you know that but not to know me and have taken me as your Lord. You see I have already paid for your sins, and there you stand not asking me once on your journey for help or guidance. You’ve thought me to be an adversary and your enemy. I will show you where those who are my enemy and not of my flock go and belong.

The man watched as another path was revealed and another door to the side of the one in front of him. The stranger touched the door and it opened. The man was assaulted by the stench and the sounds of screams and wailing. Heat was next to hit him as he looked into the dark fiery pit where people were being tortured in a lake of fire. “This,” the stranger said “is where you belong if you continue the course you’re on. Change before it is too late and you will find a place here in the light behind this other door.”

The man fell to his knees as the gold and the silver dropped from him. The man cried out “Who are you and how can I be saved from this place of torture and fire?” As He put His hand on the man’s shoulder he said “I am Jesus Christ your Savior. Put those things of the world down and follow me. I will lead you through the door to your salvation.”

The man woke up with a start, and looking around he saw he was still in his office. It was night and he heard rain falling on the roof. As the man went home that night in the rain he could still hear all those people in the pit of fire and smell the stench. He still saw the Man he now knew as Jesus Christ his Savior and the words He spoke, the Savior he needed to get to know much better before he did anything else in his life.

All glory to God

His humble servant Lee M Buchanan