Many years ago we took a bunch of our kids and adults to Boone, North Carolina. The intent was to go snow skiing. I knew that the experience was going to be personally disappointing to me because I LEARNED to ski on some of the best snow conditions in the world, in Colorado. Knowing I could never get the kids out to Colorado, I decided this would still be a good learning experience! After all, how bad could it be? Anytime you are tempted to ask that question just don't! We would find that the weekend that we chose to go on was THE busiest for this particular resort. Crowds may be awesome for football games, but near standing room only on a ski slope is definitely a BAD thing!
Another bad thing is fog. I have never actually associated skiing with fog. In fact, I didn't even know how to bring those two things together. In Colorado, when a cloud comes across a mountain, the result is SNOW! In North Carolina I learned when clouds come to the mountain, it could also... rain.
Rain is another bad thing that usually doesn't go with skiing. So... take a really busy weekend, combine with fog and rain and melting snow and ask if you get a good ski weekend from that. The answer is NO!
Rain soaked wet snow is very hard to control on. Foggy mountains are very hard to see on. With lots of people everywhere it's hard to dodge them all, especially while sliding down a mountain out of control. One of our group on skis for the first time kept saying, "I think I'm doing something wrong." He was. He was trying to learn to ski when REAL skiing was not possible.
A friend and I were talking about a mutual friend who was non-religious yet clearly looking for God. I asked, "If you were suddenly dropped into Huntsville, with no religious connections and no past experiences and unable to evaluate true versus false claims being made by churches, how would you ever find the truth?" Another friend who grew up around snake-handling "holiness" churches took a long, long time to take anything religious seriously.
Everything called "skiing" is not really skiing and everything done in the name of religion is not from God. Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you;..." (Mat. 7:21-23).
- Tim Orbison