A friend of the family, Jake, came by a few months ago to watch a movie with my father, and we all got to talking about my father’s trip back down to Virginia. Jake loves to travel, and he especially loves to drive – he used to be a truck driver. So, he offered to drive my father down to Virginia when the time came. What a gift of a friend he is!
Well, when we started talking about the trip down, we talked about route 95, and how it’s pretty much a direct trip from Boston to DC. Jake started describing the routes he takes. “I don’t take 95, even though it pretty much goes direct all the way down. I’ll take the Mass pike to 84, all the way through New York and into Pennsylvania. Then I’ll take 81 to 83 into Maryland.”
Wow, I’m thinking, that’s way out of the way. I have done lot of traveling from Boston to Pennsylvania, to New Jersey, even some to Maryland and Virgina. I’ve gone 95, 84, 684, 287, 80, Garden State Parkway, New Jersey Turnpike, and other ones. But I never would have thought of taking the route he described.
I said, “No Tappan Zee bridge?” “I don’t even take the Tappan Zee – they’re always doing construction on that.”
He said, “Even though it adds 90 more miles onto 450, it takes an hour less time. It’s because, except for Hartford, you skip all the traffic in Connecticut, and then you skip New York and Philadelphia completely.
I would never take 95 the whole way.”
Jesus has come to us, and He desires each of us to come to Him. But reaching Him is a journey that takes effort. If we look to reach Him directly, we’ll meet many obstacles in the road – traffic, construction, accidents on the side of the road, backups, delays.
But there is an indirect way we can take, and His mother knows it. She knows it because she is it. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Cor 11:1) This way looks like it’s way out of the way. It looks like a longer way, and it may not even make sense to us at first. But we get there faster and easier.
We skip all the commotion, the back-ups, and delays.
And after taking this way, you’ll never take the direct route again.
Happy Mother’s Day!
ALM 