Just ask anyone working in Real Estate and they will tell you the most important thing to consider is location, location, location.

I’ve taken a few days off from writing to move. Packing boxes, moving boxes and finding new places for all the things in the boxes can take up a girl’s time. My family is now, once again, in a new location. I love my new house, and as we continue to work on it, I love it more all the time. The house was not quite ready for us to move when we did so there are still so many renovations to complete, but we’re getting there…Slowly.

We had barely been in the new house a day when the doorbell rang. I found the sound strange. You see, we moved from a garden home community to a house that really has no neighbors. Now, we are the only house on our street. Ironically, I can count on one hand the number of times our doorbell rang when our neighbors were mere feet away, yet now that we live on a deserted street our bell was ringing. Hmm. Well I did what most normal people do when their doorbell rings, I went to the door. There stood a little boy. He was about my youngest son’s age.

I said, “Hello”. He asked, “Can Evan come out and play?” I answered his question with one of my own. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jimmy”.

His name wasn’t really Jimmy. I’m changing his name to protect the innocent. While he is not a fictional character, any resemblance he may have to your son is completely coincidental.

I said, “Well, hi Jimmy. How do you know Evan?” He told me that he knew Evan from school, and that they were great friends. Hmmm. I hadn’t heard my son ever mention a “Jimmy” before, but I pressed on. I asked him who is teacher was and where he lived. He had a different teacher than Evan, but perhaps they had met on the playground. He lived up on the next street where civilization resumed. Jimmy had survived my little interrogation and stood there waiting to see if I would allow him to play with Evan. I did.

Later, I asked Evan if Jimmy was a nice boy, and if they really were friends. Evan told me that they were not really friends at all, and that Jimmy was “sometimes nice and sometimes not nice.” I told Evan that he could play with Jimmy only when he was sometimes nice.

When you are ten, proximity is everything. All of a sudden, in Jimmy’s mind, Evan was to be his new best friend down the street. It didn’t matter that they had not really connected at all before then. Things are different when you live close by. Location, location, location.

This Sunday we will celebrate Easter. It’s a great day in the lives of Christians everywhere. It’s the day God looked at Satan and said, “Psych!”

Yep, Satan thought he had won the victory, only to find he, the Deceiver, had been had. Jesus died, but He didn’t stay dead. With a motion of His hand, a word spoken, or a thought in His mind, God raised Jesus to life again, once and for all settling my account and yours. Our sin debt paid in full.

Jesus suffered and conquered a brutal death so that we could live in right relationship with the Father now and forevermore.

As we celebrate the most significant event in human history, let’s draw near to the Father. It’s because of Christ’s sacrifice that we even have such access to Him.

This Easter, let’s remember that proximity is everything.