Were You Ever a Hitchhiker?

[HKHaugan]

Were You Ever a Hitchhiker? 

Hitchhiking as a young teenager, I really didn’t have any idea where I was headed except to get out of the city, New York City to be exact.  Having lived in other places I knew there was more than the ‘asphalt jungle’ of subways, buses, gangs and definitive ethnic and class separation.  Life there was finding a safe haven, a protected atmosphere, a comfort zone where you didn’t have to keep looking over your shoulder all the time.  I was looking for something new.

 West Side Story, the musical, bubbling over with teenage angst, sang a theme with a language I understood later, “Somewhere, there’s a place for us, a time and place for us, somewhere…”  Its powerful message still resonates in the continually frequent requests for it to be sung and played.  This tells us something.  There’s as much angst in people of all ages as there was in their young years.  ‘Somewhere’ touches the aloneness, the heart’s longing for a place where anxiety and conflict don’t exist.  That pretty well sizes up my hitchhiking drive, the same kind of drive that urges our vacations, hobbies, sabbaticals, entertainment, propelling even the arts to delve into their depths with their vicarious promises of peace and refreshment, all hoping to find the ‘somewhere’ place.

 Brothers and sisters, this is the very longing built into us when we were created.  There is an atmosphere and a place.  “God has set eternity in the hearts of men (Eccl.3:11),” eternity being the atmosphere and the place to experience their deepest longing, the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt.5:19).

But sin displaced us through Adam’s disobedience.  Now, everyone searches for their ‘somewhere’ through all kinds of pursuits, the arts, athletics, religion, education, professions and hobbies. 

 Outside of God they are endless quests for identity which may serve temporary satisfaction but die when a person dies.  But if they are done in the context of faith they not only give one an identity and provide economic stability, they become the means to accomplish the deepest needs we all have---relational.  That is, relational with the Lord and relational with one another.  This relational experience with God and one another is new that continues being new and it is eternal.  Remember, we are not religious, we are relational.  And, in Jesus the relational always brings something new into our experience. Yes, the relational is the newness that lasts forever.  What may be in the world, the ‘same-old-same-old’, is now, in Jesus, the opportunity to experience something ‘new-every-morning.’   

 The structures we live in everyday are simply the places we can experience the new, the relational opportunities, the unexpected, the surprises, if we are faithful.  Every day in marriage, family, church, group memberships, vacations, professional life, shared hobbies and interests, something new awaits us.  These and the seeds we scatter in them are structures in which we are planted so that we and others in them can bloom.

  Jesus tells this parable, “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds.  As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them.  Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow.  But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died.  Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants.  Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!  Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand (Mt.13:1-9).” 

 The point is this, if the seeds in one place don’t produce, the place they do will far outweigh the unproductive.  So, the times and places where you may be discouraged are displaced by the high productivity of the one relationship that sprouts.  If you look at the percentages in the parable, only 25% are successful.  Look at the history of Billy Graham.  How many people did the one who led Billy Graham to the Lord witness to before him?  Yet look at what God did through Him.  He was the vessel for the “thirty, sixty and even a hundred times much as had been planted (Mt.13:8).”  Many of those persons converted became active missionaries and organizers of creative ministries.  New believers, new ways of living in their existing relationships, new attitudes in their professions, new directions, new hopes, new dreams, new work, new relationships, new growth, new plantings and newness in all that the Lord produces through them.  Here are some Scriptures that encourage us to see the newness available from one moment to the next. 

 Isaiah 43:19  Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

 Revelation 21:5  And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also, he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

 Isaiah 65:17  For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.

 Ephesians 2:15  "...by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace," 

Ephesians 4:24 "...and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."

 Hebrews 8:13  In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. 

You can take each of these and apply them in so many new ways with new illustrations and even new ministries.   Let us all know if something new happened in your mind as you read them.   This hitchhiker is still finding them.