A Word About Intersections

 

Several years ago, my wife and I were privileged to enjoy a sabbatical together. The congregation we served gave us two months away from our normal responsibilities. After much deliberation and planning, we spent the first three weeks of our sabbatical in the Canadian Rockies. Just the two of us. It was a wonderful gift.

For nearly three weeks of our sabbatical, we enjoyed the wonder of God’s creation. We ate out. We slept in. We read C.S. Lewis, Walt Wangerin, and Annie Dillard. We walked along quiet paths and listened to still waters. We held hands. We talked. We smelled wild roses and mountain dogwood in bloom. In essence, we stopped. No cellphones. “nowhere to go, and all day to get there,” we were alone in the Canadian Rockies, surrounded by magnificent beauty. 

One of our favorite activities during that sabbatical was taking long drives to photograph wildlife. Elk, deer, moose, mountain sheep. We got some great pictures. As we drove one day looking for wild game to photograph, we passed a road sign—yellow with a black border that made it hard to miss. Only three words were centered on that sign. Three words that surprised me. In fact, I stopped the car when I read those words.

I opened my door, leaned across the hood of my car, and I took a picture of that road sign; a road sign that read: “Important Intersection Ahead.”

The words important and intersection don’t seem to fit together to me; they don’t seem to belong on the same sign. I mean I’ve seen signs that read, “Dangerous Intersection Ahead.” I’ve read “Congested Intersection Ahead” signs. But never in all my travels had I ever seen a sign that read, “Important Intersection Ahead.”

In about a quarter of a mile ahead, there was, indeed, an intersection. It was quiet. Almost no traffic. We looked squarely into the face of an “Important Intersection”…but we had no idea why it was so, why it was so important they had to put up a sign so people would notice. No marker to distinguish it from any other intersection. Not even a traffic signal. Just a generic, run-of-the-mill four-way stop.

 No plaque that read “On this spot in the Spring of  1888 … something important happened.” Not even a cemetery where somebody famous might be buried. Randee and I were standing at the crossroads of a very important intersection. I know it was, because the sign said so. I just didn’t know what I was seeing. I didn’t know what made the place we were standing so important.

It seems to me that life’s a lot like that, too. I would do well to understand that wisdom resides in the very important intersections of my life; four-way stops that don’t look like much of anything at all. But a wise man would do well to understand and pay attention to the signs along the way: very important intersections, I think. Listen to the words of Proverbs 8:1, 2:

 

“Does not wisdom call out?
Does not understanding raise her voice?
At the top of the prominent places along the way,
at the intersection[ of the paths, she (wisdom) has taken her stand;”

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