rearview mirrors

"Do you want a cold bottle of water?" he asked, holding it out to me like a carrot. He was standing next to a pickup with Kentucky plates.

I took the bait.

"What do you do?" I asked after taking a sip. "Hang out at rest stops and pass out bottles of water?"

"No," he said, smiling, grabbing another bottle out of the cooler in the back of his truck.

I waited for him to tell me about Jesus, thinking this was a brilliant evangelistic technique. After all, Jesus did tell us to give a drink to the thirsty. And that when we come to Him and drink of the Living Waters we'll thirst no more.

"I saw a pretty girl and I offered her a drink," he said instead.

"Oh!" I said, too surprised to be embarrassed by my naivete.

He told me about the 30-year-old dragon tattoo on his meaty forearm and then invited me to dinner. (Apparently he wasn't concerned that I was 3 when that dragon first appeared.) I politely declined.

But because we were headed in the same direction I followed him for 90 miles down the highway. And he kept an eye on me in his rearview mirror.

That might sound creepy. But it was actually reassuring. Because I knew if I got a flat tire, or hit a deer, or got thirsty, he would be right there.

It's a lot like how I imagine Jesus. A shepherd in a pickup truck, leading me in the way I should go. Not preventing me from hitting deer, getting flat tires, or growing thirsty. But with one eye on me in the rearview mirror, so He can be right there when it does happen, when I veer off in the wrong direction, or I need a dinner date.

And He's definitely got tattoos. Lots and lots of them. Of my name and yours. All up and down His meaty forearms.

EMBRACE REARVIEW MIRRORS.

The key to staying in God's rearview is to make sure He's out in front, leading us in the way everlasting.