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Route 66
US Route 66 was known as the
“Mother Road” or the “Main Street of America.” It lasted from 1926 to 1985
when it was finally decommissioned, replaced by the Interstate Highway
System.
The Route inspired songs,
movies, a TV series, and even this meditation. A few weeks ago I drove my
1967 Citroen automobile the 370 miles from Riverside, California to Seligman,
Arizona for a Route 66 car show event. As I passed Barstow, California, I
dropped off the Interstate and onto Historic Route 66. The drive turned out
to be a magical time that flooded me with childhood memories.
The section of two-lane highway
was almost deserted and I was transported to another simpler time in my life.
I recalled the family vacations that we went on when I was a kid. I
remembered what it was like when I held my hand out the car window of the
un-air conditioned car and felt the air rush past and it made you feel like
you could fly. Lake-like mirages shimmered on the road surface and made it
look like it was covered with water but the water always seemed to stay just
beyond the reach of my car.
I used almost all twenty-nine
of my car’s horsepower to race a train that was struggling up the grade only
a few yards off to the side of the highway. There were some potholes and
rough pavement in places and I had to cut my speed to less than 20 MPH but
there was no one there to honk or complain. The clouds and the mountains on
the horizon looked bigger and more beautiful at 45 MPH.
Unlike today’s highways, the
road dipped up and down through the many desert washes along the route. I
remembered my dad speeding up the family Oldsmobile so it would zoom down to
the bottom of the washes and then almost leave the ground as it crested the
other side. All the while my sister and I would be making “Whoa” noises like
we were on a roller coaster. Then there were the Burma Shave signs and their
driver safety messages, like “If daisies are/your favorite flower/just keep
pushing up/those miles per hour/Burma Shave” and “You can drive/a mile a
minute/but there is/no future in it/Burma Shave.”
Yes, there was a flood of
childhood memories. I recalled on one of these road trips my dad telling me
how he had come to embrace Jesus Christ early in his life at a tent revival
meeting outside his hometown and I recalled my dad recommitting his life to
Jesus Christ at a Christian Conference we attended together. I recalled my
embracing Jesus in faith when I was about 20 years old and being baptized in
a small church in Phoenix, Arizona. Many wonderful memories…
I guess I have always hoped
that I would eventually get my life on sort of a Spiritual Interstate where I
could just set the cruise control at 70 MPH and sit back and relax. The road
would be glassy smooth and I would sit in the lap of luxury in my Corinthian
leather seats with music from my surround sound stereo. There would never be
any temptations, sin, bumps or bruises in my life. I would be insulated from
the outside world and its needs and suffering by all of my creature comforts.
The climate control system would make it very comfortable so I would be
neither too hot nor too cold but comfortably lukewarm. This wonderful world
of spiritual and physical perfection would only be interrupted by an
occasional call on my hands free, permanently charged cell phone with news
that my cholesterol and blood pressure are down, my job is secure, a bonus
check is in the mail, my investments and 401K are way up in value and that my
wife, kids, and grandkids are healthy and not sick with colds, flu, or pink
eye.
But God has something a bit
different in mind. He prefers my life, to be a slow and simple daily walk of
faith. A trip that is much like Route 66 with its twists, turns, ups, downs
and rough pavement. It will be a life where layoffs are eminent, 401Ks are
not always going up, and one where the grandkids sometimes have runny noses,
pink eye, or worse. It will be a simple and slow walk where I am not going
too fast to reach out and help others along the way and point them to the
Savior who has redeemed me. It will be a life where I am asking God for my
daily bread and not my monthly bread or my yearly bread.
Jesus put it so beautifully in
the passage where he gives us a sample of what our prayers should be like: (Matthew
6:9-13) “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your
will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
Richard Lewis
Pathway Christian Cruisers
Riverside, CA
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