Travel day…pile it all on!
Jason Upton sings about an amazing story in the bible. In short, the story talks about two men
who were traveling to a village called Emmaus. They were talking about Jesus, his death and how His body
was not found were it had been buried.
While traveling, Jesus Himself came up next to them while they continued
to hold their heads down and ask Him if He had missed the recent
events.
The song says, “Have you ever had to lay away your
dreams, Have you ever been so lonely that a stranger is your best friend….then
you’ll know what I mean.” What caught my attention was that
these two men kept their heads down while continuing on to ask Jesus, the
Messiah if He had missed something.
I think far to often we as Americans do the same thing. We lay our dreams down of having a
wonderful family by working so hard to provide for them that we never see
them. We get so lonely as a result
of pushing ourselves further from them and closer to our career in which gives
us what we think is our life source…money. We travel so much that the majority of our time is spent
with strangers.
I’m going to miss Merci so much and the rest of the fam!
For some reason we grow up thinking that monetary wealth is
the ultimate goal. Some will say,
no it’s about success and providing a good life for my children, but where does
the “American definition” of those things originate from….money. Why do we think that our goal in life
is to go to college, get a great career (meaning paying good money), find a
spouse with those same qualities, buy a wonderful house and start a
family? Only this go around
we push the values even harder…getting them to go to a better school and attain
an even greater valued career.
Don’t get me wrong, I would not fuss in the least if I had a lovely
house and a wealthy family, but that’s NOT WHAT ITS ABOUT AND WHEN WILL WE
REALLY BELIEVE AND LIVE THAT INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FOOL EVERYONE THAT WE ARE
GOOD PEOPLE AND THAT’S WHAT WE ARE REALLY FIGHTING FOR WHEN IT’S NOT?
Jason Upton goes on to sing, “This is our highway to
heaven, our American dream, two fools on the road to Emmaus, well it might as
well be you and me.” We can’t fool anyone but
ourselves. Why do so many of us
think that we know it all, get caught up in trying to control everything and
just plain rule out what we don’t know anything about? We think we know what “God” or “Jesus”
means, but really we don’t! Many
say, “Jesus and that God stuff is great and all, but isn’t for me.” Where do we get off saying something is
not for us when we haven’t given it an ounce of our heart? We are so concerned about what we have
fed our intellectual minds, our business ideas we boast about and our “American
dream” as if it really looks different than the typical ideal. We think this is our highway
to heaven when in
reality it’s only a highway to hell.
Just as those two men thought they knew how Jesus would come
back to save the world, we to think parallel. We don’t even look up at Jesus to ask Him what He looks
like, we simply follow what our little minds have crafted together. We think Jesus in our lives means being
poor, giving up everything, going to church on Sunday and living a life that is
just about survival and no fun.
God wants us to live abundantly and only He can give that to us in the
truest sense. Jesus has a
different plan for all of our lives and when we truly seek Him with our WHOLE
HEART, only then can He show us.
Let’s stop being fools and trying to tell ourselves who
Jesus is when we really don’t know.
I can promise you, He most likely is nothing that our minds could even
begin to think up? He is alive, He
is real and He created all of us to love Him.
When we stop being fools and look up and listen to Him, then He will
allow us to see is true glory.
It’s not just for the goody too shoos or those who have what appears to
be a bad life…HE IS FOR EVERYONE. Thank you to those who have been and are living examples of this!
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND MISS YOU A TON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
