Potholes and People
Dan Kunz
If any of you are bikers, runners, or walkers, you may be able to tell from the title of this blog, where I’m headed. On a recent trip to Colorado, I made it a point to get out every day for a two-mile walk. With shoulder surgery coming up in a couple weeks, I wanted to make sure I was in relatively good physical condition. It was on one of these morning walks, that I encountered “him”. Although Colorado has thousands of beautiful trails on which to get your exercise, I wasn’t on one of those. I was on a frontage road, along a neighboring four-lane highway. Our daughter and granddaughter live in the city, so I was opting for convenience, rather than beauty!
The roads and highways were pretty busy that morning, so I chose “the road less traveled” – the frontage road. As I neared the last quarter mile of my journey, cruising along, ear buds blasting out “Free Bird”, I noticed a very large pothole ahead, on my half of the road, out near the center of the road, but definitely on my side. I also noticed “him”, a guy in his mid-forties, medium-length dark hair, driving his particular flavor of SUV (Does everybody in Colorado drive an SUV?), probably not speeding, but using every mile-per-hour the government was willing to give him. I’m not Nostradamus, but I was able to see exactly what was about to happen. He was going to get to the pothole, swerve to his right to avoid it, and, in the process, run over the guy walking along the edge of the road (me)!
It all unfolded just as I had imagined it would, except as I approached the pothole and he approached the pothole, we didn’t arrive at the same time, so the only result of his swerving to avoid the pothole was a very surprised look on his face as he, for the first time, noticed me walking on his side of the road. It wasn’t close enough to elicit much of a response from either of us, although he was probably just a little embarrassed at not noticing a guy, 6’2” and 200 lbs., walking on his side of the road!
As I finished my walk that day, I thought about the “close call” that really wasn’t. I thought about how we are sometimes “him”, driving along through life, trying our hardest not to damage our SUV’s on the potholes of life, and all the while, not being aware of the bigger, more important, more costly issues walking right in front of us! The Devil is cunning and crafty. He is sneaky and deceptive. He knows more about us and about our kind (humans) than we would like to admit. Most of us are way too easily distracted by the potholes of life, that we don’t notice the rather large and obvious people we are about to run over! The potholes/people dilemma could apply to temptations. It could apply to our priorities. It could apply to our relationships. It could apply to almost any aspect of our lives, and have some dire consequences, if we don’t notice everything in our path. Proverbs 4:26 Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. As you navigate the twists and turns of your life, please pay attention to both the potholes and the people!
[Thank you to all who said a prayer or prayers on my behalf for my shoulder replacement surgery last Monday. The surgery went very well, thanks to the Great Physician. This type of surgery is very painful, but my meds are helping me to manage it. The rehab is a slow process (3-6 months), so if you hear any yelling from Western Wisconsin, it’s just me working at returning to all the active things I love to do!]