Life Lessons from the School Bus (#5)

“It’s Not About the Journey…”

When I am driving a school bus, I am always trying to watch my surroundings. There are always dangers on the road; everything from potholes, to crazy drivers. It is also important to watch my gauges. By watching things like my temperature, fuel, and air-pressure indicators I can tell if my bus is operating correctly. The last thing I want to do is wreck, but neither do I want to run out of fuel or break down with a bus load of kids.

But the thing that I have to know, if nothing else, to make my job a success, is where the heck I am going.

Now, I am not talking about simple directions. The “rights and lefts” are the supposedly simple directions that tell a driver where a kid lives and how to get there. However, knowing where the children live and picking them up is only part of the job. Getting them to the right school is the ultimate goal.

That’s the part that’s most important, you know.  You can pick up all the kids in town, but you need to get them to the right destination. The safest driver in the world would still be harming the young skulls full of mush if the last stop he made was at the mall, the wrong school, a playground, or the city dump.  The last stop has to be the school the kids attend. Otherwise, the whole trip was in vain. If I don’t get the kids to where they are supposed to go, I haven’t done my job. My journey has ended in failure.

Life Lesson

It’s not so much about the journey, but more about where the journey ends.

2 Timothy 4:7-8 NIV – I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that dayand not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Proverbs 14:12 NLT – There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.

Miley Cyrus sang a song in one of her movies that said, “It ain’t about how fast I get there. It ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side…it’s the climb.” The problem with that logic is this: what if you’re climbing the wrong mountain? All that hiking up the side of the rocks may earn you a few bragging rights, but what’s the point if your not getting anywhere, or worse, you’re going the wrong way?

There are lessons to be learned along the road of life, but roads do lead places. A journey, by definition, needs to have a destination, or you’re just walking in circles. Sadly, many on the road of life are content with the journey, never caring that the “rights and lefts” they are following are flawed. The final, last stop leaves them without joy; without purpose; without hope; alone and empty without God.

For the Apostle Paul, there was something to look forward to at the end of his race. He realized that there was a reason for the “fight” and a purpose for “keeping the faith.” He saw at the end of his journey a reward that made the hard travel, the bumpy and bruising roads, and the “climbing” worth it all.