Tuesday, May 15, 2007

railroad tracks

I had an image yesterday of building a railroad through a desert as a metaphor for the way faith can help us move through tough times in our lives.

Trying to build a railroad in the middle of a desert would be impossible if the only materials we could use were what we could find around us. The desert doesn't offer the stuff that we need to build railroad tracks. It feels the same way when we're going through a desert in our lives. The situation we're in just doesn't provide the resources to help us keep going and eventually move out of the desolate place. A lot of people get stuck in the desert because all they see when they look around is endless desert and nothing they can use to create a way out.

But a railroad connects the furthest point out with every point already reached, all the way back to the begining. Even when the path takes us through a desert we have a ready supply line and a train that can run back and forth and pick up whatever we need. People of faith aren't stranded in the desert because they stand at the end of an already built track.

Everybody goes through desert times. People with a track of faith behind them can take advantage of that connection to reach back to resources already navigated and use them to keep moving forward.

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