One of life's most interesting places to meet people is in the "Ditch". To give it geographic co-ordinates, it would describe that area on either side of a highway. As a former Firefighter/EMT whose Department responsibility included a stretch of a busy Illinois interstate highway, I had the privilege of meeting many people in various stages of distress, but all, to a person, were in the Ditch.
As reports were filed, the common question of "What happened?" almost always led to a statement of mis-belief. It would go something like this- if I could combine them all into one thought- "I was driving along the highway, and then all of a sudden, I found myself in the Ditch." Not sure of how, but willing to admit their presence there. I always smiled to myself at the prospects of the politics of the Ditch. We are never sure how we got there, but almost always, we have to admit that we are there.
We'd almost always get things resolved, tow trucks called, highways cleared, and then everyone would head back to the station. Until the next call. And then we'd do it all over again. The Ditch would claim yet another into its mysterious realm. Day after day. Week after week.
Something behind these thoughts is what it bringing them to the front of my mind and into the words on this blog. Getting out of our cars and into our lives, we find ourselves in the most interesting of places. The Ditch. We can't explain how, but here we are. It is as if we just looked away for a moment, and "bam!" It happened.
For many, they can quickly recover from their accidental visit to the Ditch. With the appropriate help, and with a little time, they are back on their way. Yet others, if you can believe this, find the Ditch a good place to be. They want to go exploring. They want to meet the others who are Ditch residents as well. They might even want to go deeper into the Ditch with those fancy 4 wheelers. They even encourage others to join them on their excursion away from the highway.
It takes but a momentary glance away from what God is inviting us to consider to find ourselves heading off into the Ditches of the world. And once there, we see others who have for whatever reason ended in the exact place as we have. Here's a critical point I think- It's what we do to get back onto the road toward that heavenly home that matters. Too many times we linger in the Ditches of the world. We deliberately chose to stay off the path we know we really should be on, even to the point we know we are risking ever finding our way home. The politics of the Ditch deceive us into thinking being "off-road" is a good and exciting place to be. The politics of the Ditch begin to replace what we know in our hearts we should be all about. The politics of the Ditch quickly replace our desires to follow the highway to our heavenly home.
The politics of the Ditch effect people, groups, churches, even denominations and multiple denominations all the same time. We get lost in looking away, and we refuse to take the steps necessary to get back onto the right road. We find ourselves stuck in the Ditch, and we dig ourselves in deeper by asking all of the wrong questions.
The children of Israel fell into the bondage of slavery to Egypt. and when it was finally time to the leave the Ditch (Egypt) they fought with Moses at every chance to remind him this wasn't what they were used to. And as it has been said before, God chose the wilderness time to be the time His people who had come out of Egypt, would have to spend to get the Egypt out of them.
It happens.
Might the world be a better place if we took more time and energy paying attention to what we might become following God's "highway" as opposed to finding ourselves lost in the Ditch? If you have any doubts, watch the morning TV shows.
It may happen, but we don't have to succomb to the politics of the Ditch. That's a deception made for us by one who would rather encourage us to look away than to follow. The simple plan of salvation presented in the gospels of the Bible might be a place to remind us of God's way. Perhaps we all need to be reminded that the way of the world is really the Ditch.
"As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15 NLT
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