There’s a place in Eastern Oregon where the road leaves the high desert and begins a long, gradual descent through a wide valley, then begins a somewhat steeper ascent into the foothills of the Cascade mountains. The whole of this stretch of road, from the descent on the East to the ascent on the West, is perhaps 5 or 6 miles long and straight as an arrow.
Once, returning from visiting relatives in Eastern Oregon, I stopped the car just where the road begins its descent, put the transmission in neutral, and let the car begin coasting. If I remember correctly, the car was moving at roughly 40 mph when I reached the valley floor. I was still coasting when I reached the foothills of the mountains. Once the car began climbing, though, it wasn’t very long before it slowed to a stop, then began coasting backward.
Just a few years ago, God brought the image of that road to my mind as a way, I believe, of showing me what my life had become. I had been coasting spiritually for many years. For a time I may even have had the appearance of making progress, but when life became an uphill climb, not only did I stop moving forward, I began to fall backwards.
There were many reasons – none of them good – for choosing to coast. Now, of course, I deeply regret it. It was wasted time. There were people who needed help I wasn’t prepared to give. There were things God might have done through me, but I wasn’t ready. It pains me to realize I wasn’t the example of a spiritual father that my kids needed to see. Worst of all from my current vantage point, though, is that I now deeply need the foundation of relationship with God that I should have been building all that time. Not that God doesn’t shower his grace and love on me (read all the other posts here to see otherwise) but like everything else in life, the strength and character that marks the kind of man I wish I were only happens after years of walking with God; there just isn’t any other way.
And from experience – both automotive and spiritual – I can tell you that trying to restart any forward momentum while coasting backwards down a hill is not an easy task.
Don't coast. Nothing in this life can make up for lost time with God.
