Down the Road

By: Dayton Rumbold

When I started drivers ed, the first thing they said was to look down the road and not just in front of me. New drivers tend to look around, so they encouraged looking down the road to focus and know what’s coming.

Focus is something I need not just in driving but in everyday life. I need to be looking “down the road.” It’s easy to get caught up in everyday tasks. Making your bed. Working your job. Paying the bills. Spending time with friends and family. Pretty soon, the years fly by without realizing– where are we going?

Recently, I was talking to a friend who shared how he goes to lunch with his 7-year-old son every week at a local coffee shop. My first thought was, “Wow! He’s got his focus right. That’s a great dad.”

I asked him how he decided to do that. He said he had a relative who passed away. And looking back, he was sad for the many missed opportunities to get lunch with him. What was interesting to me was, he said it doesn’t drive him to regret. Instead, he uses it to propel him to action. Action for the important things.

What do you see down the road? What is important to you? What will people say about you at your 80th birthday? Getting our priorities straight is the first step to driving down the right road. I’m sure at some point or another, we feel like my friend – remorse or regret for a missed opportunity. But let that drive you to action and not despair.

Ultimately, the farthest we can look down the road is eternity. Often, we don’t like to think about life after death, but it is necessary. Leo Tolstoy wrote a book called Confessions. In it, he talked about how, at the age of 50, he had an existential crisis. He didn’t have much faith in anything. He wasn’t religious. He was already a well-known Russian writer. But he asked his friends, “What happens after you die?” Most of them said, “Well, when you die, you don’t exist anymore. There is no God and when you die, you stop existing.”

Tolstoy started saying, “Wait a minute, why go on?” Why should I keep writing books? In the end, nothing matters, whether I’m cruel or good. Everything is meaningless!” You know what his friends said? Go to the beach. Go shopping. You’re a Russian artist – you’re morbid. You’re thinking too much.

Here’s what Leo said about why he started going back toward Christianity:

“What kind of view of the world is only livable if only you don’t think about what you believe.”

In other words, the only livable world view is where you can think deeply about what is to come. If you’re a Christian and you don’t have much joy, it’s because you’re not thinking about the implications of what you believe.

At an infinite cost to himself, Jesus entered this world and died for us and will make the world perfect again. The more you think about that, it gives you joy and direction. Life is not meaningless.

As we focus down the road, relationships will be the lasting denominator for all of us. This drives us to lasting vision…

“We are purpose driven to create positive impact with every interaction.”