And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:3
July 15, 2024 - I learned early on that a successful Hitch-hiker had to follow these rules: Maintain a clean, youthful appearance, carry only a small amount of luggage, and stand in good light. I also discovered that most truckers aren’t allowed to have passengers and that hitchhiking was difficult on weekends and holidays when people were on vacations and family outings.
When I was in the seminary in Springfield, Missouri, I often made the 550-mile trip quicker by hitchhiking than I could by bumming a ride from a fellow-student. A man in a 1950 Olds Rocket 88 once gave me a hair-raising ride from Springfield to Shreveport, Louisiana at speeds reaching 90 miles an hour. I hitchhiked for over a year from ETBC in Marshall, Texas to my first pastorate in Patroon, Texas and was always back for my 7:00 class on Monday morning. Sometimes I was dropped off in pitch darkness but was never late for a preaching appointment at any church except one time at the First Baptist Church of Martinsville, Texas. But the rapists, murderers, drunk drivers, and dopers have ruined a once-good-and-fun thing. Picking up a hitchhiker nowadays is much too risky and no one thinking right would ever pick one up.
Thumbing a ride all those years never cost me a thing… but did cost the person giving me the ride. When I was fourteen, I got a free one-way ticket to heaven, too… but it cost the very life’s blood of the One giving me the ride. He’ll never drop me off in the dark and won’t be late getting me home, either. And even though making the trip was my decision…
… how I’ll go… and when… will be His.
