The Good Life

Last week I was traveling from middle Kentucky through Virginia toward Lynchburg, VA.  I was "off the beaten path" on a two lane road somewhat aggravated.  I am an interstate guy, but was not willing to drive a few extra hours to go back into Tennessee to pick up the interstate.  So I was excited when I had four-lane highways until...this two lane road became mine for about an hour.

As I drove through the country and then small towns, I begin to just look at my surroundings as I was forced to slow down and "the surroundings" were close at me.  I saw the small cemetaries, the white churches, the nursing homes, the schools, and the small houses with pasture land.

As I did, I thought about the people who lived there.  This is life.  They know their neighbors.  They attend the small country church.  They bury their loved ones in the cemetery.  They live here.

I love the internet.  It is the "world-wide-web," - remember.  We can know about a building on fire in Johannesburg, South Africa and the deaths as quickly as a building on fire on the other side of town. We can think about the ramifications of Kim Jon Un meeting Putin next week to talk about an arms deal. We can can follow the Ukraine-Russian war daily.   

But is this really life? And as a Christian, and a pastor, I'm not talking about "eternal life" or "abundant life."  I'm talking about day-by-day living.

We want to make our social posts and see how many "likes" we get. We want to watch people on Tik Tok that we don't know to make us laugh and yet we become discontented with what we do.  We read about people's arguments on Facebook and carry subconsciously their hurt. 

But the world you know, the small towns, the little churches, the small houses, the old cemetaries....and the people who make them up, that is real life - the good life.  I remember Zechariah 4:10 "For who has despised the day of small things?" I'm afraid too many of us are in that category and we need to refresh our minds to celebrate what the good life is really like.