The Easy Road

The Easy Road

The amusement parks of my childhood featured dozens of colorful rides. I stood in meandering lines for what seemed like hours to enjoy them for no more than a minute or two. Some lifted you off the ground and spun you silly; others dropped you in a speeding, clattering cart off the highest point in the park. But a few rides were slow and meandering and offered not even a hint of danger.

I liked those best when I was small.

No roller coaster for me. No going upside down or backwards at breakneck speed with my arms high above my head. I favored the carousel and the sputtering cars I couldn’t help but drive in a straight line. Even then I liked control. The one-way car track had a raised metal rail in the center—no way I could have gone off road on that. And the carousel never reversed, ever. Every horse had the same view.

Only now do I see that what seemed like freedom wasn’t. I could have gone to the park every day for a year and nothing would have changed one iota except the color of the tiny car I rode in. The park was not real life. It only mimicked real life. The sense that nothing bad could ever happen was imaginary, and the threats were predictable and tame.

A few decades later, the center rail is gone. Movement in any direction is possible. Nothing is certain . . . or safe. I can go off road, whether I mean to or not. Much is different, but one thing is the same: I never went to the park alone. Not ever. And I am not alone today. Nothing, no one, no surprise or sameness can snatch me out of the Father’s hands. That is fixed. That is certain. That will never change. Ticket, please? Let’s ride.

In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:37-39, NASB