The Red Road

Some of the lessons I learn, some of the thoughts that enter my head first came to me through a book.  Actually, most of my lessons that aren't taught by my kiddos are taught from a book, weather it is a novel that I am reading or a billboard I drive by, sometimes it's from a novel that I have read in the past and only then finally getting the message.

One such lesson I'm still pondering on is from a book I just finished called Edge of Eternity written by Randy Alcorn.  The story is about a man named Nick Seagrave and his journey on the Red Road.  Nick woke up in a foreign land, his only thoughts and memories at the moment was the battle he was battling against a pterodactyl looking creature in a raging storm.  He calls out to God, but then stops himself thinking that God has given up on him, that God has left Him, and that God wouldn't help, even if He heard his cries.

I have felt the same way, more than once.  Durring a storm in my life, I have more than once thought, 'Why won't God answer my prayers, why has God left me?'  In thinking this, I don't call upon God to help, I just weather on in the storm, everything getting darker, even my spirit, and I all but give up, for no matter how strong I may think that I am, I am nowhere near stong enough to walk through the slighest breeze without the strength of God leading me onward.

In the book, Nick didn't get to far either, he took refuge in a shallow cave, to ride out the storm and to hide from the creature.  By going it alone, we also take refuge in a shallow cave, cowering before the storm, cowering before the beast trying to devour us, while our God is there, hands on the reigns, ready to pull the beast back to submission, if only we would call out to Him.  If only we would put our trust in Him, trusting that He is not only strong enough to fight the beast, powerful enough to calm the storm, but most importantly, that He loves us enough to do so for us.  In our weakest darkest moments, God is still there, still waiting on us to call His name, still longing for us to return to Him where we truly belong.  His love is never ending, no matter what we may of done in the past, He will forever be waiting for us to call upon Him.