Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”

• Genesis 19:12-13

Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”
“Very well,” he replied.

• Genesis 37:12-13

Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’

• Genesis 48:3-4

The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said.

• Exodus 19:9

“‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.

• Leviticus 18:24

I spent two weeks in Tennessee and northern Mississippi from Christmas until after my sister had two memorial services for her late husband.  I am back home.

I took three trips to visit my sister in Mississippi.  I drove down an interstate that I had been on since before it became an interstate highway.  I had seen the sign for decades, but I suddenly became inspired to write something about it.  God does that.  You can become numb to something, but when God puts a burden on your heart, everything changes.

My son took the photograph, since I was driving.  He was not doing well.  Going to funerals seems to have an effect on his neurological system.  He has no mechanism of dealing with that stressor, yet. But he did a fine job of taking the photograph.

What impressed me about this sign is that the sign says nothing about the highway at the exit or the small town, population of about 600, at the exit.  It speaks of two other roads that originate in this small town.  As most states in the USA use the same numbering system that the federal highways use, highway 2 mainly goes east and west, while highway 5 goes north and south.  That is, even numbers versus odd numbers.  Some states have the reverse.  Some states just find a number.  Wisconsin uses letters for the county roads.

I was curious, so I did a map search.  Highway 5 takes you to the county seat, actually smaller than this town, and then on to a dead end at a four-lane highway near the Mississippi-Tennessee border.  Highway 2 goes to the next county.  That county has a county seat that has almost as many residents as the entire county where the photo was taken.  But then, that county seat would be a small town compared to many other county seats in northern Mississippi, unless you are there on a first Friday.  For those that know about flea markets, that town’s name followed by First Friday, meaning the first Friday of each month, is the “go-to” destination, if you are into that sort of thing.

So, even in extension, an exit that goes to two other roads that basically go nowhere is an exit to nowhere.  My apologies to anyone that lives there.  If that is home, then there is a true destination.  If you need gas, there is a truck stop at the exit.  The town of 600 people boasts of a Baptist Church, a truck driving school, a Mexican Restaurant, and a Steak and BBQ Restaurant.  It is not nowhere if you need any of those things.

Even the concept of Hope is sort of dashed upon the rocks, but then one road leads to another road etc.  The roads that are mentioned on the sign are small country roads that lead to small towns.  So, thinking that the word “to” is then attached to something important or the Hope of something important further down the road …  Not unless there is where your destination might be.

In other words, if you wanted to get lost where your neighbor was a coyote or a donkey.  Note: Coyotes do not like donkeys.  Many farmers in Mississippi have donkeys to rid themselves of coyotes.  But if getting lost where few might ever find you, then that might be your destination.

But do any of us know where we are going?  Sure, Christians know where we will be eventually, and sooner than we think for most of us.  But deciphering God’s Will can be difficult at times.  Do we really know?

I chose five Scriptures.  The two men who talked to Lot were there to destroy Sodom.  They knew where they were going because God sent them there to do their task.

But when Jacob sent Joseph to check up on his brothers, it seemed so innocent.  Yet, Jacob would never see Joseph come home from this easy task that was supposed to last a few hours.  Yet, Jacob went to Egypt to be reunited with Joseph.  He told Joseph that God was going to make his offspring into a great nation, but again, Jacob had no clue what was coming.  They would become slaves of Pharoah.  Abraham had been told this, but did Jacob make the connection?

Then God told Moses that He would come to Moses in a dense cloud.  That happened because God said it.  But God warns the people in Leviticus to not defile themselves because the people who had already been defiled were going to be driven out of the Promised Land.  But the Israelites defiled themselves in just such a manner and were driven out into exile themselves.

In all of these “going to” statements, the ones that stuck were those spoken by God or a messenger from God.  When we say them, they may or may not work out as we planned.  They are always subject to the sinful flaws in our lives.  And even when we think we heard God’s voice, had we really prayed enough to be sure?

But one thing is clear, when we take an exit that points to something else, we must do a lot of praying before we go down that road.  We must trust in God’s guidance then and every step thereafter.

And always… Go with God.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.