Life is a Highway!

As a driver, there are road signs that lead and guide your way through your journey from the point of departure to your destination. These traffic signs and other safety features are there for our protection there are many different types of signs on the road; here are just a few:

The different signs tell us different things. The sign that has the arrow on it tells the driver that they are about to merge with traffic coming into their lane, if you are on the higher road. If on the lower road it tells you that you will be merging into oncoming traffic. On the lower road there is a guard rail. The guard rail's purpose is to protect you from going off in the ditch, wrecking your car and having to be towed up on the road again. The guard rail does not restrict your freedom to drive, it simply protects and guides the way. My blog post today will tie road signs, guard rails, and rear view mirrors in with the gospel or "Good News" of Christ!

Also on the lower road there is another sign that looks like this.

This tells the driver that the right lane is about to end and they need to merge into another lane.

Life throws us dead ends and lane changes all the time. This should not stop us from continuing on; we should just merge and keep going with what ever we feel god is telling us. Sometimes we should turn around and go another way.

 Here are a few more common signs that have spiritual meaning as well:

Dont Run Faster Than You Have Stregth

 Every once in a while we need to stop and go to the "hospital" of Christ.

We should always make sure were running parallel, and connected to the Church-cho train! :)

 Sometimes life gets rough and uneven!

 Savior Totally Offers Peace

Back to the Guard rail analogy. Imagine driving down a long mountain road with a lot of curves. There are guard rails all along the way to protect you from falling off the cliff where the bottom is hundreds of feet straight down. There are jagged rocks in the bottom. It is a dirt road with loose gravel and very narrow. I pose two questions: 1) How safe would you drive if you had a loved one in the car with you? 2) Would you try to bend the guard rail and go off the cliff? Anyone in their right mind would say "I would drive as safe as possible and No! I wouldn't bend the guard rail and try to drive off! It could kill me!"

situation 2 you are driving down the same road and same mountain. your the lead car and you and your friends are coming home after enjoying the outdoors. Could you stare in the rear view mirror the whole time glancing up to see if your on course, and make it safely down the mountain? Of course not you would eventually wreck into the rail. It is the same in our lives, there are road signs and guard rails to keep us safe, rear view mirrors to help us see that everyone else is okay and to help us get home safe with our loved ones. The guard rail can be interpreted as the commandments that God has given to us. They are there to help give us guidance in our lives so we don't end up off the cliff! We can not afford to try to bend them or run straight through them doing so would put us off the cliff and could kill us spiritually. By driving slow we can control the car. Sometimes in life we need to slow down, step back, and see! We might be able to see a better path that we would have missed cause we were driving too fast. This will control the "car" or our lives, families, relationships,or what ever you would like to put there. We cannot look at the rear view mirror and expect to navigate the treacherous road of life! We can and should be looking forward at what is ahead and not so much what is behind us. In some situations it is helpful to glance in the mirror for help to see where we turned and how to do it better. However if looked in to long it can become a distraction taking our eyes off the road and end up crashing.
 I will share a personal story from my life that goes along with this. It was my birthday and my dad got me tickets to go to a UFC fight from my uncle. My dad couldn't go so he sent one of our family friends with me to Las Vegas so we could enjoy the tickets. We went to the fight and enjoyed the fight, we had VIP passes and were in some very good seats. The fight ended and we came home late that night. For the next few days I was so proud that I got to go to the UFC that I took my pass and hung it on the rear view window of my car.
I replayed the events of that night time and time again. Well Sunday rolled around and I got up got ready for church and started on my way to church. Our church is 6 miles from my house in Nevada and like almost all Nevada roads it is a country road with not much to look at and besides I had driven this road many times "I knew it like the back of my hand." The Speed limit is 70 mph and so I drove 70 mph I came over a hill and was so proud of my VIP tag that I started making sure it was facing the right way and not spinning to much. It was going to be perfect I was going tell all my church friends about it. At the bottom of the hill there was a slight turn to the left, I was distracted by my tag and didn't look up for a while I felt it was about time to turn. I looked up to turn and I was almost off the road I pulled the wheel back to the left and when I did my back right tire hit the dirt and it put me in a spin at 70 mph on a corner with ditches on both sides. I spun into the on coming traffic lane and turned the wheel as hard as I could to turn around. The car started to correct and I started spinning the other way I was subconsciously tapping the brake and gas at just the right times to straighten me out. The tires finally caught and I halted to a stop I looked in the rear view mirror to see if traffic was coming. I ended up facing the opposite way that I was traveling and so I mashed the gas to get out of the way of on coming cars. Luckily there weren't any cars coming and I was able to pull off and catch my breath. My tires were very hot and smoking from the slide I was in.
Needless to say after this happened I drove in to church very safely and slow. I removed all the distractions that could possibly distract me from driving. I tell this story because it teaches me a lot about how to live life.
For me I was a pretty good kid and I was going to church, however something unfortunate happened to me. I learned that sometimes bad things happen to good people. Even those who look like everything is perfect in their lives. I also learned that even though it is okay to glance at something you can never become preoccupied by that one thing. I have also learned that God loves me and was looking out for me in several different ways. He gave me a speed limit other wise I would have been doing 90. He guided me to step on the brakes or the gas at just the right times as well as turning the wheel to maneuver out of my spin. He told me to look up at the very last second that I could have looked before running off the road. He gave me a parallel for repentance in that I had a distraction, it caused me to drift off very slowly and eventually start a down hill slide. Through his help I got stopped and turned around going the right way back to church. After I got stopped I removed all distractions that could possibly get me distracted again and then I was exactly obedient to the laws for the rest of the drive.

I know God is real he guides us he doesn't want us to wreck but if and when we do he has a "tow truck" there ready for us that will pull us on the road and get us going again. I know if every one follows all the guidelines of the road and of God then we will not ever get into an accident. We will be able to navigate the road of life and be led to a safe place where we can be with our families after our long drive. This blog gets two videos this week and they can both apply to the message.