Of Rulebooks and Roadmaps

I went to college in the late 70’s at what was then known as Southern Missionary College, in Tennessee. There’s nothing unusual about that. My parents lived in Arizona. Here’s where the problem lay. If you know anything about United States geography, you know that there was no quick route home. As a matter of fact, during the days of the 55 mph speed limit, it took about 36 hours by car to go between the two. That’s a long way to drive by oneself. So I didn’t.

My cousin, Paul, who also attended Southern, but lived six hours further away, in Southern California, purchased the coolest truck from the California Highway Department roads crew. It was a 1972 Dodge step-side pickup. Oh, it didn’t look like much when he bought it. Road-crew yellow. Plain. Ugly. Not the sort of vehicle college guys try attracting women with. The only ones that would have been attracted to it would be ones that naturally wear safety vests around the house—which weren’t exactly the types that we were interested in. We at least wanted ones with a full set of teeth.

Anyway, back to the truck. After he and his dad did a makeover, this thing was one cool ride! Metallic-blue paint job. Mag Wheels. A topper on the back with a full carpeted deck to stretch out a sleeping bag or two and plenty of room underneath to pack all of our luggage. Along with all of that, in keeping with the rage of the late 70’s, it had a nice Cobra CB Radio to communicate with all the truckers across country. And for internal communication, there were windows in between the cab and the back for shouting through or even crawling between when we were tired of one or the other.

Once my cousin had completed the makeover, and knowing that my ’69 Ambassador Rambler was on it’s last leg, he called to offer to share the truck with me at college if I would help him drive it across each time. I was game. Three days later he pulled into my driveway driving what he had now dubbed “The Blue Burrito”, ready to head east. What a setup! One could stretch out in the back and one could drive. We could drive it straight through and feel good when we got there. It turned out to be a great way to go.

By Christmas, there were many more “westerners” wanting to ride with us back across. We quickly calculated that with 6 of us in the truck at 14 miles per gallon, if we split the gas cost among everyone, we could get by on about $20 each cross-country. (This is back when gas was at an unbelievable high of $.88 per gallon. Hard to fathom, I know. We were outraged.)

We crammed four in the back in sleeping bags and put two in the cab. Since there was no heat in the back, we figured that four across would add the extra warmth, with the warmest sleeping bags on the outsides. In the cab, one would, of course, be the driver, while the other rode “shotgun”. The person riding “shotgun” would be responsible for navigating through the cities to make sure we stayed on Interstate 40 and didn’t end up heading north or south. We would rotate teams every two hours for safety and to let someone in the back sit up for a while as well as warm up, and let the driver and navigator lay down in the back for some shut-eye. In this manner, we figured that we would always have an alert driver and navigator. Besides, after four hours in the back you were ready to get out and do anything but lay down.

We divided into three teams of two. Since each person would only drive every other time their team came around, we figured that each person would only have to drive 9 of the 36 hours to Phoenix. Paul would have to drive the additional 6 hours to Southern California himself.

It was 4 a.m. The back of the topper door was abruptly jerked open and cold air blasted in to awaken us. “Keele, Jansen—your turn to drive.” Paul was already scrambling for his shoes, knowing that he was the next driver, and as such, he had to pump the gas so that he would be fully awake to drive. I slid out of the back and just slipped my feet far enough into my shoes to allow me to step on the heels and tiptoe around to the cab. I was seat-belted into the “shot-gun” position in the warm cab in no time, and with my head on a pillow against the door, was quickly back in dream land.

Abruptly Paul jerked open the driver's door, slid in behind the wheel, and slammed the door shut. I sat up, eyes half-open. “Well, navigator,” Paul said, “Which way?”

“Wha?” I half-responded.

“Which way?”

“West, you dufus!” I leaned my head back against the door and started back to slumber city.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean? Where’s the freeway, and which way is west?”

I sat up and looked around. The station that the last team had selected was out in the middle of nowhere. Looking all around us, I couldn’t see the freeway either north or south of us.

“So do we go left or right?” Paul asked.

“Go left…no right…no—hold on.” I opened the little window from the cab to the back, but they had the topper window shut tight against the cold. I banged. No one moved.

I got out and walked around and jerked open the back window. “Hey, which way is the freeway?” I shouted. One guy looked up and said, “It’s down there,” and pointed toward the roof of the topper. He abruptly broke into a snore and I was sure there would be no more helpful information coming from his direction. The other three never moved.

I closed the topper door and walked back around to the cab.

“Do you think we should ask for directions back in the station?” Paul queried.

“What, and break the man-code?” I gave him a shocked look. “No—we’ll find it! Besides, I got a small clue from the dead-heads in the back. They said, it was ‘down there’, so that means we need to turn South. So go left.” I was proud of my powers of deduction and Paul seemed to be satisfied.

He turned the “Blue Burrito” left and we headed out. After about three miles, he turned to me and asked, “Are you sure this is the right way.”

“Well, no, not exactly.”

“Why don’t you check the map?”

I flipped on the cigarette lighter, flexible-necked map light from K-Mart and opened the glove compartment and started fishing around.

“Will you look at this?” I exclaimed, drawing out a California Highway driver’s manual. I flipped it open and began to read.

“Seat belts are now required of all occupants traveling in a motor vehicle. You got your seat belt on?

“Yes, but are we going the right way?” Paul countered.

“If you’ve got your seatbelt on and I’ve got mine on—looks like we’re doing fine. Oh, look at this. It says you are not supposed to follow any emergency vehicle closer than 500 feet.” I scanned the dark horizon. “Look dude, I can’t even see any emergency vehicles, so we’re doing great!”

“Yeah,” Paul said weakly, “but are we going the right way?”

Point: The Bible is the Word of God—not a rulebook, but a roadmap.

Heb. 4:12 says For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

2Pet. 1:21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible isn’t there to just let you know all of the rules. God gave you the Bible to help you get where you need to go—heaven. Has it ever occurred to you that you could be doing everything right and still miss The Way?

NOTE: For those of you who remain curious. Yes, we did turn around and yes we found the freeway about 4 miles back.