God created...

Although I spent the entire day on the highway (440 miles, 7 hours 30 minutes of seat time on the bike), it was a magnificent ride through the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. There was a scenic viewpoint of the first mountain I came to, so I pulled off to get some pictures. As luck would have it, the only cars in the lot were down at the entrance end, leaving me all the space in the world to park my motorcycle at the other end and get some great mountain shots with the bike...until the Bickersons pulled in and parked almost right next to me. A whole parking lot full of spaces to pick from, and they drive all the way to the end and park right where I need to stand to be able to get my best photos. To top it off, as soon as their doors opened it was "F-bomb" this and "F-bomb" that. Such a pleasant family, so glad they inflicted themselves on me, especially since it didn't appear that they had any interest at all in the scenic overview. So I backed up as far as I could and got a couple of crappy shots to share with you:



The view without the bike in the way.



I believe this was actually still in North Carolina (Pilot Mountain?) and was surprised that there weren't any scenic pullouts, at least none that I saw, on the whole trip up I-77.

As I traveled through the mountains, marveling at God's creation, I got to thinking about Christians, the creation story, and wondering if we don't often focus on the wrong part. It seems that so often I hear well meaning Christians passionately arguing, both amongst themselves and with non-believers, about the various aspects of creation.

First, let us address the non-believers. Why do some Christians get so red-in-the-face trying to convince non-believers that God created all this? They're non-believers. Wouldn't it be enough to take the Apostle Paul's cue and "shake the dust from our sandals" in this regard? If they were believers, trying to discredit the creation, that's a whole different issue, but they're not...so why do I see people wasting their breath trying to "prove" something using a book and ideas that the non-believer just believes to be garbage. Seems like a waste of time and energy to me, both of which could be spent doing good for the poor, orphaned, and widows...just my two cents.

Next we have the different factions among the believers. There are those who believe God created the world in 7 literal days. There are those who believe that God created the world and let each step "cook" before moving onto the next step. There are those who believe God created the world about 10,000 years ago, and just made it look like it was 4.5 billion years old. There are those who believe God created the world 4.5 billion years ago, and "let it cook" before creating man. There are even some who believe God created the earth "a long time ago" and then scrapped the whole project and started over at some point, hence the 4.5 billion years. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Isn't the important part "GOD CREATED..."? Does the timeline really matter? Can't we just be happy with "GOD CREATED..."? Seriously, all the stuff between "God created..." and "For God so loved the world..." is great history, but it doesn't really impact anyone's salvation, does it? I'm not saying we should just forget about everything between Genesis chapter 1 and the New Testament, but when we spend time arguing amongst ourselves about the "when" instead of telling the world about the "why" aren't we wasting our time and God's?

Well, there you go, that's what happens when you put a man on a motorcycle for almost 8 hours and let him drive through the mountains.

Tomorrow is another day, and another road.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:The hills