A Beautiful Drive

Grace and I are blessed to get a chance and see the nation.  The United States is a beautiful country.  We initially wanted to travel the globe and live abroad but then covid happened. Instead we bought a van! But it has been great!  God has shown us so much about the people and that there is a vast field that desperately needs sowing! 

As we travel from state to state to fulfill the ministry God has called us, we have the opportunity to see the immense beauty of his creation.   We see vast canyons, rolling luscious green hills, painted plateaus and snow capped mountains.  We get to watch the slight to significant change to the landscape when passing through different biomes that make up the areas we drive.  But sometimes we travel at night.  We don’t like to do it.  There are various reasons for it, our lights on the van are bad, at night we tend to feel more tired when driving, and some of the places we travel are obscure and so the roads can be a bit winding.  But one of the biggest reasons is we don’t get to see God’s creative beauty.  

One time we had to hurry to get to an event and needed to drive through Utah and around the part of the country that goes through Zion National Park.  It definitely felt dangerous.  It was absolutely pitch black with winding roads that make u-turns around the mountain.  It was daunting.  I was happy when we finally made it to our destination for the night.  At the time I didn’t think much of what the drive would have looked like. But when we went back through, I had to drive slowly from all of the massive rock formations, and the vast drop offs from the side of the mountain.  It was a beautiful, awful, and fearful sight to behold.  The majesty of God was truly on display during that trip (and that's not even the most beautiful drive we’ve had!)

I think life is like this.  We go through life sometimes not recognizing the beauty of how God is moving and working in our lives because we are covered in darkness.  The darkness of the world, the darkness of Satan's dominance over it, and the darkness of our own lives in sin.  And just like that trip I drove the first time through Zion, it can be confusing and frustrating, but it can also be beautiful.  There were moments where we got to see amazing things (like this tunnel built through Zion that is so long and two cars can barely fit inside), but until we have the light of the sun shining down we won’t get and can’t even fathom the splendid glory of what's going on with us and around us.  This beauty is only illuminated by the light of the world, Jesus Christ.  There is a peace and a contentment that resounds  that can never be found outside of the knowledge of God through a relationship with Jesus.  So today if you don’t know him, get to know him so you can learn why he is worthy.  If you do know him, learn him more so you can be consumed with the knowledge of his love for you that will display a new reality of all the beauty around you.  God bless you this day my friends.