One of the realities of a job such as mine--working with dozens of churches that are spread over a wide area--is that I get a lot of “windshield time.” Hours and lots of kilometres between meetings and connections are a usual part of my life.
For quite a while, I tended to see those travel times as wasted hours. They were simply wasted time between important connections. The problem with that perspective is that if this is wasted time, then it is a time to be minimized. And time to be minimized can only be so minimized by seeking to make it shorter. Making it shorter can really only be accomplished through an increase in the average speed one drives.
There is, as one can imagine, a steep cost to that effort, and it became quite clear after a couple of expensive tickets that I needed to rethink this process. So I began thinking about what I could do to change my circumstances. I could, I suppose, not travel as much. But that would seem counter to my ability to do the job I have been hired to do.
What it came down to was that I needed to redeem the travel time. To do so, I made a couple of changes.
First, I decided that travel time was a great opportunity to talk to the people I serve. So a good blue-tooth headset became a permanent part of my travel kit. And as I get ready to drive, I find a piece of paper and prayerfully ask God who it is that I might need to talk to on that section of the trip. Sometimes the list is very short, and sometimes it is amazingly long. But in almost every case there is a spiritual quality to those conversations.
Of course you can’t always talk to people, and there are times that calls are not effective or needed. So I took a second step. I found a web site called Christian Audio. Here one can purchase audio editions of almost all of the spiritual books for sale. Additionally, every month there is a free classic audio book offered. With the addition of an audio version of the Bible, and periodic trips to the local library to pick up an audio book, I now find the trips interesting and informative. With the addition of some favourite worship music, travel has become a time of worship, growth and inspiration.
A couple of months ago I downloaded the classic book, “In His Steps” by Charles M. Sheldon. I have the book in my library and had read it some twenty plus years ago, but decided that it might be worth listening to again.
It has been a great experience. It has challenged me to think again about how my life and every part of it should be focused on being Christ and His hands and feet to the work we live in and connect to. Asking the question “What do I think that Jesus would do if he were in my situation?” with the commitment to do just that, is really how we all define holiness. As I listened to the book (it is more than eight and a half hours long) I found myself looking at my life, my actions, my priorities, and my values and asking myself “Do these things … my actions, priorities, and values … reflect the heart and mind of Jesus?”
Sadly, it shouldn’t have to be a book that calls those questions to mind. It should be our deep-seated, life-enveloping commitment to and love for God that calls us to think those kinds of thoughts and commit ourselves to a lifestyle living in the reflection, power, and presence of Christ through His Holy Spirit. That is, after all, what Jesus would do!
