I was in the USA to record an album for Integrity Music. The spin-off for the family being that they were able to take a relatively short hop on the plane from Alabama and spend several days at the famous and ever popular theme parks of Florida.
Greeted with huge excitement by Pat and my 2 young (at the time!) sons, rides such as Space Mountain, King Kong, Back to the Future etc. proved a huge hit with us all, and did not disappoint. At the end of each day, however, we found ourselves knowing that our biggest challenge still awaited us.
This was back in prehistoric times before we all owned satellite navigation systems for guidance on our roads. Each evening, having taken the tram to the car park, we would alight into our hire car and negotiate the freeway ahead. With its conspicuous lack of British-style roundabouts and with confusing road signs that seemed to dangle above our heads at traffic junctions, each night became an ordeal as we would take numerous wrong turnings. Inevitably we would be sent off in a direction far from the Quality Inn hotel that we increasingly longed for. South East, North of Florida and all points in between became the backdrop for this unfolding drama.
Eventually, amidst all our confusion we began to recognise that the common thread in all this was the Burger King restaurant. We discovered that once we found that building stationed by the side of the road we knew we would eventually find our way home. Unconventional though it may seem, finding Burger King became our aim and the key to us successfully arriving back before dawn!
Sometimes, locating where you are on a journey is hard enough, but it’s even harder to see who you really are. The dance of life pretty soon leads to a march to conformity when we compare ourselves with and erroneously adopt the standards of others to live by.
I wonder if Jesus was alluding to this that night in conversation with Nicodemus, who had all the trappings of success but still was seeking:
“No one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again” was Jesus’ response to this devoutly religious man’s question. Could it be that being born again involves learning to think differently from our established values as part of the package of new life?
Substitute miles for years, and maybe the Burger King episode points us towards more than just finding a comfortable hotel for the night.