Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

• John 14:6

“What a pity we have no room, I thought.
“But my happy African brothers saw no such problem. ‘Of course,’ they shouted together. ‘Join us!’
“While the man walked around the car, one of the men in the backseat leaned forward and whispered, ‘Pray with us that we bring him to the Lord.’ Then the man sat between the driver and me, holding his big dirty black tire on his lap. The men began singing and praising the Lord again. Soon, they were telling the man about Jesus. Before long, he gave his life to the Lord. I was too concerned about the road and the way the driver drove to rejoice with our group.
“Up ahead, a woman with two children waited on the road. ‘Let us give her a lift and also bring her to Jesus!’ one of the men shouted.
“Did he really mean it? There was absolutely no room!
“She climbed in the backseat with her three children, all piled on top of one another. One of the children crawled over my shoulder and plopped onto my lap. I could not feel my legs. Never had I been in such an overcrowded automobile-and on such a terrible road.”

• Corrie ten Boom, God is my Hiding Place

“God cares about the attitude I have while making my way through life.  I will enjoy the journey.”

• Corrie ten Boom, Highlighted Quote

Boilerplate

In this new mini-series, I will be looking at a devotion that is said to be written by Corrie ten Boom.  Really, this devotion is like several that I had read.  They come from the writings of that person.  Thus, the prayers at the end may be the editor’s addition to what Corrie ten Boom actually wrote.

Each of these posts will include the suggested verses to read, a quote from the writing that came from a Corrie ten Boom book (five in all according to the copyright page, but no chapter in the book is given the specific book of origin).  I will also include the highlighted quote, similar to an internet quotation, and I will end with the quoted prayer for that devotion.

Discussion

Tante Corrie started the day by worrying.  She had to go somewhere in Africa, and the only transportation was an old car that was barely holding together.  To make it worse, the road to her destination had holes in the road and tree limbs that they had to drive across.  It was constant bumping.  Each time she worried if the car would survive the next bump.  The first man in the story with the bad tire had his car break down by driving over a tree limb.  She had some African men in the back seat and a driver when they left.  The car was legitimately full.

She saw a full car.  Her friends in the back seat saw an opportunity to share the Gospel and they led two people to Jesus.

But it took Tante Corrie a while to rub her legs to get the circulation back.  And while she did so, she realized what she would have missed if she vetoed the idea of picking up hitchhikers.

The car and the road remind me of events from my past.

When we visited my sister and her husband in Puerto Rico (my brother-in-law being in the Air Force, at the time), we were told not to walk along the highway.  A publico was duty bound to pick you up no matter how many people were in the car.  Technically, a publico is a “shared taxi.”  But a publico was a road safety system to keep pedestrians off the road.  In those days, a publico charged a quarter no matter where in Puerto Rico you were going.  These days, the rate is variable, but still extremely reasonable, $3 to $5, maybe some local routes only fifty cents.  But it was not reasonable to stack people on top of other people and have people hanging out car windows.  As Tante Corrie was thinking from inside the car, I would be refusing the ride (which was not allowed) because that publico was full.  I never rode in one, but I saw them (yes, more than one) driving down the road, with the publico scraping the pavement due to the overload, and people sitting outside the windows with only their legs in the car.

But as for the bad road, my next to last trip to P. R. China was to an aluminum mill on the area near the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, a finger of land pointing toward North Korea.  I was with a young engineer on his first trip out of the country.  To make things worse, this was during the Olympics in Beijing, and we had a connecting flight there.  We had worked hard to get a flight from Yantai to Beijing so that we could connect to a flight to Shanghai.  Then from Shanghai we could fly back to the USA, to Chicago.  If we missed a connection, with all the people trying to get out of China as the Olympics were winding down, we might be stuck there for a while.

And our driver was late in picking us up.  The hotel concierge had a heated discussion with him in that driving the usual route, what should have been the “shortest route”, would get us to the airport too late to catch our flight.  With a pained expression on his face, the concierge then told me, “He knows a shortcut.”  When the concierge tells you this, it is not good news.  Not really.

Yantai is known for its apple production.  In a post a couple of years ago, I wrote about how they tie a bag around each apple so that there would not be any bug bites or blemishes from birds on the apples.  We got to see that up close and personal.  The Yellow Sea was in view most of the way as we took a dirt road, going very slowly almost along the beach.  This was a dirt farm trail where vehicles got the apples to market, not really a road at all.  To make matters worse, it had rained the night before.  In my youth, if it was a dirt road and it rained, you were getting stuck.  The driver drove through a couple of small mud puddles, but then we got to a puddle that was twice as wide as the car, three times as long as the car, and we would bottom out just getting into the puddle, as the sides of the hole were deeper than the size of the tires.  I grumbled that this was not going to end well, but the driver realized the problem.  He waited for a truck, loaded with apples to get out of his way, and he drove around the mud puddle.  For an international connection, we had to be at the airport two hours in advance.  When we finally got on a paved road, I checked my watch.  We had about ten minutes to get to the airport.  We drove up a little rise with apple trees outside the car window, and just past the apple orchard was a sign saying Arrivals, Departures.  Yes!  The driver knew a shortcut.  It was not a road, but it got us there.  We had never really gotten to the city of Yantai, but we got to the Yantai Airport with only seconds to spare.

And like Tante Corrie, we had a story to tell.

Both the two of us and Tante Corrie were worried we would not make it to our destination.  Forget getting there late.

But we have a sovereign God.  He knows what He is doing.  He knows our needs.

So, why not enjoy the ride?

Closing Prayer

“Father, forgive me for the times I’ve lost sight of the big picture because I was distracted by the details or fear of the unknown. When I become focused on myself, please nudge me out of my stupor. Help me to slow down and pay attention to the people You place in my path. As I walk close to You, remind me to enjoy the journey so I won’t miss the blessings in front of me.”

• Corrie ten Boom, God is my Hiding Place (prayer for Day 13, Enjoying the Journey)

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.