#Asleep at the Wheel

Today I was walking our dog along a route we have walked nearly every day for years.  We live on the edge of town and have walking options.  Bandit the dog prefers town; being the lonely only dog at our house there is much more to entertain on the town route and I know secretly he hopes to see other dogs.   His faithful master (that’s me) prefers the rock road because it is quiet, has less traffic and we don’t encounter other dogs; which is a good thing because a loose dog can quickly turn a pleasant walk into an unpleasant one.  

As we walked home along the sidewalk that runs parallel to the highway we live on, I noticed a cute little pooch up ahead. He was walking on the sidewalk all by his lonesome self and thank goodness he didn’t see us.  We were in the middle of the block and we could have turned around and taken a longer way home but I was a little nervous the other dog might spot us, get exited and run after us.  No owner in sight, of course.  I thought about crossing the road, Bandit was on leash, but I didn’t want to risk the other dog running after us and getting hit.  So, we just stopped; and then I noticed something I had not seen before, an alley to my left. And we abruptly turned left.

In all the years I had walked that route I had never before noticed that alley. I’d like to say that I pay attention to my surroundings but this proves I must not be very observant and this next story confirms that.  Just before the New Year as I took down the last year’s calendar and I leafed through the pages (it was a calendar I had purchased, not a freebie which makes this story even worse) and I noticed that each month had a covered bridge in the scene. I glanced at the front of the calendar; sure enough it was a series of covered bridge paintings. “How could I have missed that,” I wondered?  Well, I had; just as I had missed that alley. Sometimes it feels as though I spend most of my life asleep at the wheel.

I know I have been when it came to my faith.  For over fifty years I didn’t understand what I said I believed.  I grew up going to church and I went to church nearly all those years. But going to church doesn’t save you. And let’s be honest here, one has to want to be saved in the first place. With all my best thinking I walked right past Jesus Christ all this time; until one day I woke up and abruptly turned left, right into Him.   I nearly missed THE most important thing; the solution to all of my problems (yours too) and the source of my greatest joy (yours too)!  # No longer asleep at the wheel.

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not” John 1:10-11

# Close personal relationship. # Nearly missed it. #Don’t be a dope like me!

#Joy filled always,

Christine Davis