The Interstate

The Interstate

As Christians we are riding down the interstate of life. On it are many rest areas. Some are better than others but each is designed to provide rest and refreshment on our journey. However, none are designed as extended stays.

The foolishness of loading up your belongings to travel to a rest area as one’s destination is absurd. The thought of wandering a parking lot, using public restrooms and showers because we enjoy the occasional odd conversation, the manicured scenery or the snack selection provided in the vending area would have to be the height of idiocy. Yet this is exactly what much of modern Christianity teaches.

CS Lewis wrote of this:

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

We load up our vehicles setting off on a narrow road, forsaking all, in pursuit of, (as John Bunyan referred to it…) the Celestial City. We start this journey with full realization that the path is narrow and on it are many off ramps and rest areas. The off ramps appeal to our flesh and test our motives. Are we really pursuing Christ for who He is? Or for what He can do for us?

The off ramps lead to perilous areas of town. Full access to the world that exists in this lower plane. Roads that twist this way and that, never seeming to lead back to the interstate. Once one has departed the path, return is all but impossible. He makes his home here. He finds that the path he set out to pursue led him exactly where his heart desired.

In the same way, the interstate itself runs through these perilous areas. Danger so close one can see it. Just on the other side of the guardrail are the pleasures and desires that appeal to one’s flesh but lead falling away. Just beyond the next overpass threatening enough to make one desire to get off at the soonest ramp rather than pass through.

All as Jesus said, intended to reveal to us, why we got on the interstate to begin with. Hearts, motives and faith, all tested in the crucible of fire and temptation. As one approaches the danger and the choice to continue on or exit is faced, one can plainly see how the heat that hardens the clay, melts the wax. How the same fire that consumes the hay, refines the silver. Passing through each trial yields the peaceable fruit of faith refined in a furnace. And it will be needed as each trial is destined to surpass the one before.

But our Lord, in His wisdom, has not set us on this road to lead us to asceticism. For He is not only all wise and sovereign, but He is good, and knows the things we have need of. He has set along this interstate rest areas for these travelers.

They are intended for the refreshing of the saints. To point us toward God’s character. To allow us the opportunity to heal from the wounds received in times of testing. Our Lord knows the things we have need of. But there is a danger. The danger is to begin to see these rest areas as the destination. To prefer the comfort they provide over the perils of the interstate. To lose sight of the Celestial City and set up permanent camp in the rest area.

Thus we are revealed, not as pilgrims on our way to the destination of our Father, but vagabonds wandering hopelessly without a destination, seeking only the comfort and freedom that brings us happiness.

Rest areas are designed to recuperate the weary for the journey, not as permanent sanctuaries to avoid the difficulties of that journey. Setting off and willing leaving our area of rest is how our Father reveals to us our true motives. Lingering, prompts our Father to send in His attendees waking us from our slumber, and setting us on our way.

We are not without guidance though as to these matters. For He has given us His Spirit. A heavenly GPS and compass. Along with it His Word, a map, perfectly in sync with His Spirit. As we encounter others on the road, in the rest areas, we receive directions from other travelers. Sometimes these directions warn us of perils ahead. Other times they offer alternate paths. Our Guide and Map are the single way we can determine the trustworthiness of these directions. For our Guide and Map only show us the path to the City, to our Fathers will. Whereas all other advice falls to the temptation of our baser desires.

Comfort, happiness and rest are gifts given by our Creator to be enjoyed for a time. But they are not to be exalted as the destination itself. It is through this lens that we discern. Gifts are given by another, to be received and enjoyed. But they are never pursued by one and the expense of Another. One seeks the glory of Another. The other seeks the satisfaction of self. Each off ramp from the interstate offers the same satisfaction. Self.

The interstate offers every desire one sets in his heart. Either Christ and a continuous dying to self. Or self, fulfilled in the passions and desires of the lower plane from which we set about on our journey. A plane onto which every off ramp returns us to. A plane which will be consumed by fire at His coming.