How's Your Course?

During my senior year in college, I took a road trip from Stillwater to Seattle, Washington.  A friend of mine named Kenny lived there for a short while and needed to return to pick up his furniture.  So we drove his van non-stop to avoid paying for any motels.  While we were there, we stayed at my sister’s house (she lives just outside of Seattle).

The trip took us around 33 hours to make and we only stopped for gas and to eat.  The weather wasn’t that great through some of the Rocky Mountains since we went in February.  At one point, I was driving through Utah and Kenny was sleeping in the back of the van.  It was around 2 in the morning and I was getting sleepy as well.  I had the radio going and plenty of coffee but I didn’t notice the road conditions.

I continued to maintain my speed – I must have been doing at least 65 – through some pretty steep mountain roads.  Some fog set in and the visibility was pretty poor.  However, most likely due to my lack of sleep, I failed to reduce my speed.  We were zipping along and Kenny comes out from the back still half asleep and does a double-take at the road and the fog and our speed.

“Are you trying to kill us?”

“Huh?”

It was at this point that I realized, “Well, these conditions are just right for a major accident.”  So I reduced my speed and was wide awake after that!

Sometimes in life, we don’t really look at the path we are on with a clear head.  We may fail to understand how dangerous it really is.  Many times it wouldn’t take much to throw our lives into chaos that could have been avoided.

I was proud when I graduated

with my doctorate.  I hope to 

discuss when pride is healthy

and when it becomes problematic.

In the church year, we have the season of Lent to examine our lives.  This is the period before Easter of forty days (not including Sundays) when we take stock in where we are headed in life, how we are doing spiritually, and what we need to do differently.

We will begin with a special service on Ash Wednesday and will continue on Sunday.  I hope that you will join us for worship on Ash Wednesday at 6 pm for a family friendly service or at 7:00 pm for our regular service.  At the 7 pm service, we will begin a sermon series on the seven deadly sins which has a deep history in the church as we consider what tempts human beings down the wrong path.  Ash Wednesday will let us look at pride and on Sunday, we'll examine gluttony.  My hope is that our careful examination of these sins may just keep us from crashing!

In Christ,

Sam