“On your left!”
Vroom!.….I barely had time to steady my bike when the serious senior cyclist brushed past me – a yellow streak of lycra with a goal in mind.
“Still chasing that American dream” I thought.
A moment or two earlier I was slowed in my tracks as a rabbit ran across the path in front of me. I recalled the words from our Creation song,
“The rabbit that skipped as His foot touched the ground.”
I too had been speeding along, but the incident caused me to slow down to a pace more in keeping with my attire – yesterday’s shorts and teeshirt, an old pair of sandals and no helmet!!
As I began to be more present to His foot-print in the woods around me all sorts of wonders appeared. Of course they had always been there, I was just going too fast to notice.
I pondered my white-haired counterpart who had just zoomed past….. presumably a ‘successful’ man now retired and able to afford “all the gear”…..rising early and speeding ahead.
I came to a familiar crossroads and thought “I’ve never turned right here” so let the notion take me while my thoughts continued in a straight line….There in front of me I saw the first sign:
I remembered another “Vroom-man”, one of my fellow “Freaky Fast” drivers at Jimmy John’s when I had followed the Spirit to a sandwich delivery job for a season last year. When I asked him “How are you doing?” he would always give the upbeat reply, “Living the dream!” I knew he was studying and aiming for something better than JJ’s delivery and that his positive confession was more about his distant aspiration than his current position.
Keith Green’s song came to the mind.
“You can run to the end of the highway…and not find what you’re looking for.”
Then as I cruised round the next corner I saw the sign: “Damascus Way”
I chuckled, and gratitude rose up in me as I realized that just like my famous namesake, God had halted me too from “chasing a dream” The unconverted apostle’s earthly dream was not ‘worldly’ but religious…..to wipe out those evil Jesus followers…..maybe the zealous illusion that we are “serving God” is even more dangerous than fame or fortune?
At the end of the book of Acts Paul discloses the secret to his change of focus. ” I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven” On the Damascus Way, Paul was ‘stopped in his tracks’, and exchanged his earthly dream for a heavenly vision.…. a vision of God, as he really is, and the good things He has in store, especially for those who seek after Him in this life. The blind prisoner in the house of Judas (Jewish law) on the Straight Street (of orthodoxy) after being knocked of his (high) horse was after three days of reflection transformed from Saul (the demander) to Paul (the little/humble one) as his physical vision was restored and true spiritual vision awakened for the first time! (Acts chapter 9)
Years later he still writes, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Yesterday I heard an interview on the radio encouraging people to consider writing a legacy letter to leave for their children.
Often people say to me. “So you left Medicine to go into Ministry?” I thought, “I don’t want to be remembered by a destination…. but by a disposition – as one who stopped “chasing earthly dreams” and started “living a heavenly vision.”
“Blessed are those in whose hearts are the highways to Zion.” (Ps.84:5)
Praying this legacy be written on the hearts of all our children.