Road Construction

We spent a whole lot of time in lectionary group yesterday playing with the metaphor of building God's roadway. Ultimately, we determined three things about it.

1. It takes a lot of work to build a road.

2. It takes a lot of time to build a road.

3. If said road requires hills to be made low and valleys to be filled in and curves to be made straight, then it requires a lot of people to give up something to make it possible.

It was point three that I resonated with. In my time as a business manager for a construction company there was a project in which I had to find the names and addresses of every property owner along a 3 mile stretch. We were going to have to invoke the county's right-of-way and we had to let them know. Most were agreeable, but one family had just installed a decorative driveway that would be ruined by our digging. There was some fighting and some anger and some negotiating, but ultimately they had to give it up.

As the pathway of God is built it will find its way on to everyone of our properties and require us to give up some piece of ourselves. Sometimes it will run through a corner of our lot, but other times it will run through our bedroom or our bank vault or our liquor cabinet. There will be some fighting and probably some anger and surely some negotiating, but when it comes to God's desire to bring all flesh to his salvation, ultimately we will have to give it up.