Fog on the Highway

 

On Easter afternoon three people were killed and at least twenty-five were taken to the hospital in an accident (technically there were seventeen accidents within a one-mile stretch of road) on I-77 in Virginia. According to Virginia State Police once the first accident happened everyone else was traveling too fast for road conditions to stop – there was fog.

However, there was not only fog, there were signs on the road warning drivers to slow down. Drivers had the signs, they had their own eyes, they had their years of driving experience, but they didn’t slow down – some of them died, some were seriously hurt, some ninety-five of them wrecked their cars. Families were affected and lives were changed as speeding drivers entered a mile of terror. Had the drivers slowed down they might have reached their destinations an hour later, perhaps more than an hour later, but they would have reached them – some would still be alive, some would not be in the hospital, some children would not have lost parents. The fog was there for the eye to see, the signs were there for the eye to read – both were ignored.

Was there a driver or two who thought, “I really should slow down but since everyone else is driving so fast I’d better go fast too.”? Was there another driver who thought, “I should slow down but I don’t want other drivers to be impatient with me so I’ll keep the speed up”? Were others thinking, “I know there is fog and I see the signs, but I’ll be able to stop in time if there’s trouble”? Was there a car in which a wife was saying to her husband, “Honey, please slow down”?

We can live like everyone else, think like everyone else, go down life’s highway like everyone else – in spite of Biblical warning signs, in spite of the fog that society lives in – if we do so we can expect to join others in a mile of terror. On the other hand, if we follow Jesus we have His promise that He will never leave us or forsake us and that His peace will live within us no matter what we may encounter – in Jesus Christ we have a sure and certain promise of an endless future in Him. We can live and run with the herd or we can take up our cross and follow Jesus (Mark 34-38).

Better to walk with Jesus in the light than to speed down the fog-enveloped highway of society.