“You ever go to Canyonville on the other side of Weston Mountain?” Stan asked me one morning.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of it,” I replied. “What’s there?”
“Not much,” Stan said. “I guess it was a thriving community at one point in time, but now it’s pretty much just a wide spot in the road on the way to or from somewhere else.”
“In any event,” he continued, “I was passing through there on the back road from Johnsonville the other day and stopped for a cup of coffee at about the only business left in town.”
“Anyone else there?” I asked.
“Only a nice lady who served me some coffee and convinced me to have a piece of blueberry pie she had made that morning.”
“Bet that was good!” I said.
“It was fabulous!” Stan said. “Just about the best pie I’ve ever tasted. But what was really great is that this nice lady affirmed for me the importance of a daily walk with God.”
“Over coffee and a piece of pie?” I said. “How’d that happen?”
“I asked her how long she had lived there, about the history of the place, and things like that,” Stan replied. “Turns out that at one point Canyonville was large enough for a newspaper. She had been the editor and publisher of a weekly newspaper that was called The Canyon Echo.”
“Did she have a copy of that?” I asked.
“I asked her the same thing,” Stan replied. “She did not. She said they all got burned up in a fire a few years ago.”
“Too bad,” I commented. “Probably interesting.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Stan said, “but what the lady said about it sure was for me.”
“What’s that?”
“She said it was a weekly newspaper because not much news happened, but she related how essential it is for us to have a daily walk with God in Christ because that’s the only way to find out and see what’s really happening.”
“Daily versus weekly,” I replied. “Kind of like the difference between going to church on Sunday, then putting the Bible on the shelf until the next week, rather than spending time with it every day to see the Good News. You think that’s a fair statement?”
“I do,” Stan said. “And I think Jesus said the same thing in Luke’s gospel when He was talking about discipleship being a daily thing, not every other day, not just once a week, and certainly not just whenever I happen to feel like it!”
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Bible verses to consider:
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it,” Luke 9:23-24.
And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. Matthew 10:38.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:27.
Prayer: Thank you for your provision of life eternally with you when my time here is completed. Thank you, too, that you want me to be a disciple on this side of eternity while I wait for the train. You say that I am to take up what you have for me take up on a daily basis. I confess that too often I do not do so because that is what I choose. Please forgive the foolishness of trying to live the life of a Christian without doing what you say to do in being a disciple. Please help me to follow every step of your lead in truly denying myself, taking up what you have for me to take up each day, and following just as you intend. Thank you that I can and do bring these prayers before you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Think on this: Have you accepted God’s free and gracious provision of life with Him in eternity when your time here is completed? If no, why? What’s in the way? If you are a Christian with the assurance of salvation and redemption, how are you doing with being a disciple on this side of eternity? Weekly, monthly, once in a while, or daily? If you are not taking up what God has for you to take up on a daily basis, and want to do so, how is that going to happen? Is that what you want? Why or why not?
Waiting for the Train 