Mountaintop musings: Road Tripping

By the time this is in print I will be in Springfield, Ill. Then on the 23rd Lisa and I will be sharing our ministry with Zion Hill Baptist Church in Chatsworth, Ga. The following week it is on to Cleveland, Ohio to officiate our oldest son’s wedding, then a mad dash across country to get home! A vacation you say; hardly, although there will some “vacationing” along the way. We will be visiting with many old friends along the way, but not all and that is too bad. In order to do that, we would have to be gone a month and that is not going to happen anytime soon.

I guess we could have planned this trip out sooner, and better. It is always like that though, isn’t it? For many, that is discovered on the trip, but others don’t realize it until the trip is over. For us we KNOW our trip planning for these things is always last minute with some things just not going to get accomplished.

Our son Isaac went to college at Pacific University in Oregon. When we were looking at colleges we planned to visit George Fox University. While there the friends we were staying with asked if we were going to visit Pacific University. We said we had not even heard of it. Well we went there, Isaac loved it, and they gave him over $110,000 in scholarships. What a great and unexpected blessing that turned out to be!

Just last month Lisa, Elena and Oaklie went to Oregon and kind of just made up the agenda as they went along. They had a blast. Oaklie got to see the ocean and the zoo in Portland. She still talks about the fun things her and her Momma and Nanna got to do!

On the road trip of life, it usually works out better for people if they plan ahead a little, and watch out for danger zones along the way. Sometimes things pop up and there is no warning. For us it was a cancer diagnosis. For some friends of ours it has been the loss of a young child. Others of us deal with suicide by a loved one; drug additions; the loss of a job after many years of faithful service, and the list goes on. Life can be predictable but., oh, it can throw us a real curveball, can’t it?

It is at times when life seems to spin out of control that people lose hope, fall in to depression, resort to various “medications” that do not solve the problem and in fact make things worse. I know for me that when things get crazy I find myself praying to God more, reading my Bible more, and sharing my needs with my church family who will also pray for me and my family. Yes, I turn to Jesus! I do not turn to “religion”, but to the One who knows the circumstances of my life perfectly and completely. I have found out through many trials and years that Jesus will really work! He will not always make the problem go away or fix things the way I want them fixed. Oh, sometimes he does things the way I expect, but He usually fixes them way better than I could ever imagine.

You see, I believe in the Bible. I believe that God has a plan for me. I believe that there is a Master Planner that will work things out perfectly for the good of those who love the Lord. So, when the road trip of life gets rough, or detours spring up, I get a chance to reset my trip meter of faith and ask the Chief mechanic of the Universe to chart me a new and better path.

You know what? He always gets me back on the road and rolling down the highway of life in much better shape than when I had to pull over and call for roadside assistance. Maybe life is a struggle right now; if you have not turned to Jesus give Him a chance. What do you have to lose?

Until next time!

(Dave & Lisa Carroll are area missionaries with InFaith, America’s oldest Christian home mission agency. You can contact Dave at 406.459.8935 or [email protected].)