Taylor

Sometimes picking up a hitchhiker gives your own drive an interesting twist.
Take Taylor for instance. I picked him up on my way to Vermont about 1 week ago, when I went to clean out my storage unit in Berlin. We talked (he talked) all the way there. He was tired of just seeing trees and insisted that one day he would be famous and he was headed out of Maine to make sure of that. So the five and a half hour drive from Augusta, Maine to Burlington, Vermont, was riddled with ideas and thought's of Taylor's ideas of self-agrandizement. Just shy of perfectly amusing (if he had a better command of the English language, instead of the vernacular that teenagers commonly use nowadays, it would have been a perfectly amusing conversation), it kept me entertained and virtually shortened the drive there.

I dropped him off at Church Street. And for those of you who know Burlington, I'm sure he found it quite entertaining. When he left I slipped him some cash (he didn't have anything, and he was working his way to New York City!!) and he surprised me by leaning over and giving me a hug. Imagine my shock. Any of you who know me that it takes some time before I'm comfortable like that. I had to chuckle to myself at his generosity of affection. After all he did let me snap this photo off my G9.

It made me think about the road we travel in this Christian walk. What happens when we run into someone who is simply coming along for the ride, not because he wants to go where we are going, but because he simply doesn't want to be where he is? Although a good place to start, it also means that when he's done, he won't join you.

"But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto a perfect day." - Prov 4:18, if you've forgotten.

And if we haven't found a love for the Light for ourselves, if our destination isn't where the Way leads, we're doing what my hitchhiker friend did, and just hop out when the path isn't going where we think we want to be. It made me wish I packed my Jeep with some Steps to Christ, just in case. But it's rare to pick up people who'll go such a long way.

I don't want to be a Christian Hitchhiker. I want to make a decision to ride Christ's Word to the end of the line. All the way through Judgment Day.