There’s a fork in the road about 40 yards ahead, but with all this fog you would miss it if not somehow made aware. (lots of wrecks happen here.) Experience will save me because I travel this road daily.  How did I gain this experience?

Living on a small farm one of my daily activities was to ride in the truck with my Father.  We had the daily chores of checking on the cows, mending fences, harvesting hay, oh, and occasionally eating blackberries, mulberries, and wild plums growing in the fields.  I was riding with him starting at an early age of about 7 and continuing through my teenage years.

It’s a small farm with cows and hay fields.  What that meant to me was GATES…….. and lots of them.  Barbed wire gates, metal gates, wooden gates, and yes more and more gates.  Some gates would be hard to open.  They were secured by wrapping barbed wire around the top post.  My father’s favorite saying as I was opening the gate was “Squeeze that gate likes it’s your girlfriend”.  And I would….. By hugging the wire gate closer to the loop holding it, it would release and the gate would open.  But most of the time you had to squeeze and hug with all your might.  So, I squeezed her like she was my girl.  To this day I think I squeeze my wife too hard because of this.

Most of the time my father would drive and I would ride “shotgun” in the passenger’s seat.  The cow dog was always in the back.  Whenever we would come to a gate, my father would stop the truck.  I would then look at him and say, “Father, does Thou want me to open the gate for Thee?”  “I will wait for thee to answer me.”  “Thou will be done in the truck as it is back at the house”   C’MON MAN!!!   Are you crazy????  I don’t talk that way with my Daddy.  After stopping in front of the gates on the farm, (probably 15 gates from one end of the property to the other), I just knew!!  Repeat the process of stop the truck, now open the gate.  Well after repeating this a few times, I didn’t have to wait to be told to open the gates, I just knew.  Does this mean I can read my Father’s mind and know his will and what he wants me to do?  More likely it means that I can be taught and I can learn by repeating something over and over.

That’s how I learned to bale hay.  That’s how I learned to vaccinate calves, or mend fences, or work the chicken houses.  I learned my father’s will and direction for my life by repeating stuff over and over.  It’s probably telling off on myself (and I bet you as well), but don’t we learn most things by doing them, repeat, doing them, repeat and doing them again?

How did this teach me to take the fork in the road?  Just like Yogi Berra was always known for saying,  “If you come to a fork in the road, take it”.  As I became older, my Father began to let me drive.  The cow dog still had to ride in the back.  Driving on farm land and fields is a great way to learn how to drive.  People think it’s safe.  But when you are the driver, you constantly have to drive defensively because at any minute, right in front of you, is a stump, or sink hole, or even a baby calf.  So there is the proverbial “fork” in the road.  You learn driving in the fields that a decision must be made and made quickly.  You instinctively learn to drive defensively.  This is valuable experience.  It will save my life many times in future driving.  Do I go right or left?  Most of the time it didn’t matter.  What mattered is that I avoid whatever the problem is right in front of me.  What also mattered is that my father was there in the truck teaching me.  I can proudly say I’ve learned to drive defensively.  How?  By repeat, doing it again, repeat, and doing it again.  Also a few run over stumps and sink holes along the way. 😉  Repeat, repeat, and repeat.  Thankfully no baby calves were harmed in the process.

So turn your attention and seek the Eternal One while it is still possible; call on Him while He is nearby. Isaiah 55:6 Voice

How do you make every day decisions?  How do you make life changing decisions?  My hope and prayer is that you make your choices by “riding in the truck”.  Ride each and every day spiritually with your Heavenly Father driving or either riding shotgun with you. Jesus gave us the key because He is the way, the Truth, and the Life.  No man can come to the Father but by Jesus.  Whether it’s God, or the Holy Spirit, or Jesus taking the wheel, you as a Christian  have them to lead and direct out lives…….. and the choices we have to make.  When you have a close relationship with God,  then you are “in the zone” to live this Christian way of life.  Be ready though.  It involves a lot of repeat, do it again, repeat, do it again. Not much of Thees and Thous goin’ on.  Just a lot of day to day growin’ in your spiritual life.

I’ll never forget the day as a young teenager.  I go to get in the truck to head out on the farm.  My Father is sitting in the passenger’s seat.  There wasn’t any wondering what “his will” for me was.  I jumped into the driver’s seat and I’M DRIVING !!  When my Dad get’s out to open the gate…. yep you guessed it.  I stuck my head out the window and hollered, “Hug it like it’s your girlfriend!”.  The cow dog and I both got a laugh about that.

See Ya!   Drive (and live) carefully!

Dan Ainsworth wilderness preacher