No Accident

road trip

Accidents are an ever present danger on road trips. It's not something you consciously think about unless the weather is bad. And then, honestly, I have to ask myself what some of these drivers are thinking when they ignore the unsettled road conditions.

Case in point was hgwy 86 in Idaho between Twins Falls and Pocatello. The weather was foul ~ a combination of ice and snow ~ and the roads were deceptively treacherous. If you live in this neck of the woods you know that black ice is one of the most dangerous conditions because the road looks perfectly fine but is covered with a thin sheet of ice without a whole lot of traction.

We passed no fewer than a dozen vehicles that had spun off the road and were upside down or otherwise incapacitated. One small truck sat forlornly in the middle of the lane with no top. It wasn't a convertible; the top of the truck had literally been sheered off by the force of the object it encountered.

In an instant, in a heartbeat, in the blink of an eye, life changes and is never the same again. Someone dies, someone mourns, someone shakes his head at yet another senseless tragedy.

I don't want to be the one that God shakes His head over. I choose purposeful death and joyful living. Let me explain.

We all have a shelf life and an expiration date. None of us know when we will breathe our last corporeal breath. Only our Maker does and He mourns over every physical death that was not first preceded by spiritual death and rebirth in Christ. He shakes His head over the senseless tragedy of another lost soul. Only Satan rejoices as He scrapes up the battered body off the pavement and welcomes that soul into eternal separation from God.

And that's what I believe. I believe that Christ died for my sins and by freely accepting His gift of redemption while alive, I have died to my old self and been born again in my new self ~ no longer lost but eternally found.