Inspiration at the Super 8

 The Super 8 where Mom and I stayed during the annual Forest Festival had a breakfast room, and all the weary travelers gathered there to make a waffle or dip out a steaming ladle of delicious sausage gravy to drown a stale, but well-intentioned, biscuit. Mornings were a time to mingle and find out everyone’s purpose and assess how well or haggard they looked at the start of a day on the road. We struck up a conversation with one fine looking group of people connected to the pristine Model-T cars in the parking lot. They were from Michigan and took joy rides around the country, usually accumulating 100-150 miles per day. I asked, “How fast do the Model-T’s go?” and the man with a great white mustache replied 65 mph. He commented, “That’s the question everyone wants to know, but the more interesting challenge isn’t speed, it’s stopping the car! Because of mechanical brakes instead of hydronic ones, it takes a lot of effort to slow down and actually stop.” And I thought…yes, isn’t that often the case!
     This month so many people will make New Year’s resolutions to do this and that…eat better, go the gym, etc. But instead of doing something, what if we consider stopping something? It’s a resolution with a twist. But what on earth would we want to stop???
     The Bible gives us lots of suggestions but I’m only going highlight three that I think could make our new year healthier, and happier.
     In Matthew 6:25-34 we are told to stop worrying. Easier said than done, right? But what a freedom if we can learn to give our worries (and the people causing the worry) to the Lord. This might need to be a daily giving. Mom and dad were such a beautiful example of how to handle worry. Mom used to joke with Dad as she pushed his wheel chair into the bedroom for the night, “Well, Den, I guess we’d better go to bed as tomorrow will have its own worries.” And then they’d both laugh. She must have been onto something, because verse 34 says “Stop being anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow will have its own trouble.”
     Another suggestion of something we could stop doing is being bitter. There is a bad spirit of offense that seems heavy but must not be because people seem to pick it up so easily. John Wesley once said, “People who wish to be offended will always find some occasion for taking offense.” And I’ve heard it said that another person cannot ultimately offend us, but it is our reception of the insult that makes us offended. Dad used to call it having a thick skin. Ephesians 5:18 instructs us to “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you…”
     The third STOP challenge is from Isaiah 1:16, “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doing from before mine eyes; cease to do evil…” Simply put, wash yourself and stop doing wrong. Ever camped for a few days and forfeited a shower? Or sweat so hard putting up hay so hard you had a dead spider in your belly button? If so, then you know the glorious result of a good “washing”. If we want a list of things we need washed off, there are several things in the Holy Scriptures that are abominations to God. God gives us help and promises when we are tempted, He always provides a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13). It’s just our job to take it.
     Another interesting facet to Model-T cars, according to our hotel breakfast companion, is that while they struggle to get up the hills, they certainly go downhill fast. Before we follow suit, we might want a model of perfection to pattern our lives after…and Jesus “fits that to a T”.

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