As I mentioned last time, my wife and I took a trip and found that our road maps, GPS systems and even the road signs along the way were sometimes prone to error. So we found the direction given us was sometimes misleading and a couple of times just plain wrong. You don’t want to get me started about getting through Omaha, Neb., and passing the same exits three times or how the route from Laramie, Wyo., to Fort Collins that was only supposed to be 35 or so miles (according to the road map, GPS map and even the road signs) turned into 70 plus miles. I guess I’m still a bit sensitive about that.
If we think about it, life is a lot like that in many ways.
We receive a multitude of advice and opinion about the decisions and directions we ought take as we travel this road of life and sometimes the advice is misleading, prone to error, or just plain wrong and we end up having to detour or backtrack and travel the same stretch of road over again (and sometimes again) until we get headed back in the right direction.
It’s because of this difficulty we should choose with care the direction and advice we follow. The best we can find is found in God’s Positioning System - The Word of God - which should be the bedrock of our positions on everything. Psalms 32:8 says: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.” And if we won’t trust God for our guidance, well, maybe nothing unpleasant will happen and we won’t be stuck on side roads too long while we figure out we should be listening to His wisdom instead of being so quick to trust what the world tells us.
I said last month I might tell you a bit about how we experienced God’s Protection System as we traveled and what we experienced left me with very strong feelings about what happened. No, we didn’t survive a snowstorm, dust storm, violent thunderstorm, earthquake, volcano, tsunami, animal attack, mugging or carjacking, although we were definitely in areas where these were possible. What happened to us was much less spectacular, but to me still illustrates Psalms 91:2, “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: My God; in him will I trust.”
One of the things I really liked about our travels was the speed limits; on the major interstates they werealmost all 75 mph, 20 mph faster than last time we traveled those roads. This meant we were able to cover much more distance in much less time, enabling us to spend less time driving and more time enjoying the trip.
What we don’t realize is just how fast that really is.
At 60 mph (the speed most people drive at even if the speed limit is 55) your vehicle is traveling 88 feet per second or 1 mile a minute and it takes 304 feet to stop your vehicle after you realize you need to stop. At 75 you are traveling 110 feet per second which means you are traveling 1 mile every 48 seconds and it takes you 433 feet to stop after you realize you need to stop.
We were in the center lane of five lanes of traffic almost bumper to bumper at 75 mph when it happened - the tractor trailer directly in front of us blew a trailer tire, and the tire disintegrated right in front of us and the traffic was so thick, there’s really no place to go. My wife screamed, well, maybe a little loud expression of surprise, and I remember thinking, “Well, our sugar’s weighed up now.” Then it was over and not one piece of the tire had hit us.
You know what I mean - the pieces of blown truck tires we see so often on the highway we no longer even notice them anymore? Not only did not one piece hit us, not one of the vehicles next to us was touched either.
As I’ve said before, we can trust God implicitly. When there’s no time to react, remember, we were traveling 110 feet per second - God is still on the job. I could tell you of many such times in the last 50 years God has done that very thing for me.
I have learned to trust God’s Protection System implicitly, knowing when I can’t, He can.
Oh yeah, the strong feelings I mentioned, I have very strong feelings that it ought to be illegal for trucks to run re-capped tires - they could (and possibly have) seriously injured someone!
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Editor’s note: Charlie Newman is pastor of Avoca Christian Church. To contact him, e-mail pastor@pastorcharlie.
net, or write in care of The Times at [email protected] or P.O. Box 25, Pea Ridge, AR 72751.
Church, Pages 2 on 12/07/2011