The Right Track

Living in Osceola and working in Elkhart leaves you with one option every evening after work: drive home the longer back way or drive home the quicker way and take your chances with the train. Inevitably, I am in “go home mode” and often forget about the train reality until I notice that on my left where the big rail yard runs parallel with the road, a train is chugging its way toward the road where I must cross. Often I play the “let’s see if I can outrun the train and make it across the tracks before the guard rails come down” game, and sometimes I make it and sometimes I wait. Occasionally, you will have the unfortunate experience of waiting as one train goes one way and another goes the other way. The worst though, is when you can see the end of one and another one comes from the other direction. It’s like, “awesome, there’s the end,” so you start the car and then… “nooooo… here comes another one!” This happened today. This morning, I caught a train going to the Camp to mow, and then later on, going back home after leaving the Horizon Center with Chad. We caught a double train. So we were waiting there and he thought it would be cool to take a picture of him standing still with the blur of the cars rushing by him. I think it came out pretty well, and I don’t often shoot railroad shots, but I keep meaning to head over to the yard and do a few shots. (Click on the little pic to enlarge.)

Naturally, I was thinking as I shot these pictures, that it is so interesting how amazing these vehicles are. A hundred massive steel wheeled cars, pulled by several thundering, powerful engines, running on two narrow pieces of steel that run thousands of miles across the country rushing by me at 50 miles and hour just two feet away … just gives me respect for the whole process. Someone has to route these things to make sure two don’t collide, and even though they certainly seem to come at inopportune times, usually when we are in a rush, their track record is pretty impressive. (Yes, pun intended.) And then I started thinking about how the Lord has directed many of us to a specific track, a path, a destiny. It’s a narrow track, and can run for miles, ups and down, straights and curves, through cities of life and bustle and through sleepy towns at midnight. As long as we keep moving forward and no obstacles lay in the track to derail us, we will reach our destination on time. Sometimes there are a few switchyards, where we take on new cargo and drop off the old, and sometimes we need a rest stop so we can get fueled up for another run. But it’s good for me to know that the Dispatcher in Heaven knows the route and He’s paying attention. All I need to do is keep communicating with him and carry on with His directions. It always seems to go alot better than way anyway.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
Don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do,
Everywhere you go;
He’s the one who will keep you on track.
– Proverbs 3:5-6