The Divine Crash

Several days a week I drive to the seminary, on the way I see all sorts of things like this Elvis statue.  Mostly I see trucks…..lots and lots of trucks.  One road I drive is a 10 mile stretch of one lane winding road.  There are two types of trucks on this road ones with a full load and ones with an empty load.

Getting behind an empty truck is not a big deal because they can go the speed limit.

Getting behind a full truck is bad.  When these trucks go up hill they slow to twenty miles an hour.  When they go down hill they might speed up but not to fast, so that they can stay in control.  The only time they go the speed limit is when the road is straight and flat.  It isn’t the truck’s fault or the driver’s fault the truck just has so much weight that it cannot go any faster.

We’ve been there.

Some days we are an empty truck cruising along taking the curves and the hills without a problem and without a care in the world, no matter what life throws at us we are just fine.

Some days we are the full truck.  We desperately want to go faster but our loads are holding us back.  Every hill seems impossible no matter how small.  Even the down hill seems too dangerous.  The only time we feel even slightly normal is when the road is flat and straight but even then we can still feel this full load on our back.  We yearn and strain to go faster but the load we carry holds us back.

What are these loads?

• These are the things that stress us out, cause us to be busy or cause us to worry.
• We think they will help us but in reality they don’t.
• They are the things we think will bring us freedom but only make us slaves to them.
• They are the things we think we must to have to make life better only to find they are to heavy to carry.

How then do we ditch these loads? How do we stop living our lives in such a way that the only time we feel normal is when life has not thrown us a mountain or a curve in the road?

We desire so desperately to be free and to empty our full load that holds us back.

I think the best way is to fix our eyes on the goal.  What is the prize? the destination? What is that we can focus on? If we make it to the next mountain or the next ending we will eventually find the end and be rid of our heavy loads forever.

Some prizes are far away, some are close, some are good, and some are not.  The best prize is the author and perfecter of all things, Jesus Christ.  He is not only the prize but also the reason to run.  If we can focus on getting closer to him and doing whatever it takes to reach him then all of a sudden we realize that our load is not so heavy and not so hard because our goal is also the one who runs with us and when we can’t carry our load Jesus will even carry it for us, all the way to the cross.

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Random Thoughts by RevBT