Does God bless you for making the biblically moral choice ? (even in the ‘smallest’ of decisions…?)
Today, I broke the law. In my head, I justified my criminal behavior, from a sinner’s perspective, by saying “it’s not that bad.” Now, I know what you are thinking… (or do I?) “Who did you kill?” Oh! I mean, “What did you do?”
Well, since you asked; We have overstayed our welcome at a certain apartment complexes parking lot, and were asked nicely to move. Not once, but twice by two white stickers pointing out “Your truck tags are expired”. They even offered to tow our truck to the nearest impound at our expense! How nice of them! Well, I decided I would save them the hassle, by moving the truck myself. Now, I have AAA… and towing is free. Yet, I live just across the street from said apartment complex. From there, I weighed the time commitment (of waiting for a tow truck) to the consequences (slim-chance of getting pulled over while driving a vehicle with expired tags) … and the Consequences won out. Whilst driving said truck, a question crossed my mind, backed by my little knowledge of the Bible… “Does God bless you for making biblically moral choices… even in the ‘smallest’ of instances?” The reason I ask, is because while driving the truck across the street “wasn’t that bad”, the bible states (in fewer words) to submit to civil authorities and obey the laws of the land... (1 Peter 2:13-17) So from there, I wondered to myself, “Am I disobeying God’s will for me because I chose immorally?”
So I leave you with my thoughts, would God have blessed me if I had chosen the more righteous path? and the answer… Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. (Psalm 106:3)
(Does this mean I am going to hell… No! Because thank Jesus Christ, God’s only son, who came here to carry my burden, and unjustly die on the cross, to defeat hell, and rise again so that sinner’s can have a relationship with God)
So that’s it, right? Finished the drive over to New York. Enjoyed visiting family in between Seattle and Albany (some for a second time). Picked up the car. We’re done, right? I guess we should just go home from there.
But we didn’t.
Stopped to see friends in Baltimore. Stayed in North Carolina. Thawed out in Jacksonville. Since we had gone so far, we might as well finish the drive down to Miami, right? Maybe even chase a sunset to the Keys!
So we did that too.
Stayed over in the Orlando area, and enjoyed family there. Since this has been quite the adventure, we thought it might be wise to have a vacation from the adventure before we headed back to work.
Cedar Key was recommended as our layover spot, and it was perfect! We stayed at the beautiful Cedar Key Bed and Breakfast. Rode around on a tandem bicycle. Just had a good, restful night.
Our drive was going to take us right by Adrian’s dad’s house. So we decided to stay one night there. On the way there we passed a guy pushing a giant globe! So we had to ask him what he was doing! (www.worldguy.org)
Got to Baker, had a great time. Told them about our adventure.
Then we locked keys in car.
Again.
A friend drove up to unlock our car. There was just one problem – we couldn’t find the keys. So we were stranded in Baker, but at least we had good company. It took us three days, but we finally found the keys we drove home.
Home is where ever I am with you.
This short video only has clips from some of the trip! Not even all of it. We took over 200 videos with almost 2 hours of short clips from around the country, picked some of our favorites and condensed those into 2.5 minutes.
Keep checking back to the blog! There are two more posts from the trip. There will be other videos to be posted from the trip as well!
Don’t count the days. Make the days count.
The Great Race West East began. We had 5 days to get from Seattle to New York. Luckily our friend wanted to make his way to Montana too, and so he drove the whole there. We had to stop and put chains on our car to get over the Great Divide… but aside from that terrifying drive it wasn’t as bad as expected. The expected being that we wouldn’t be able to drive on hwy 90 at all in a compact car, all attempts would be fatal. The whole drive to Montana the boys talked in a Canadian accent. As a matter of fact, Adrian kept the Canadian accent for the rest of the trip through the Northwest, and every time he called a hotel he spoke in said accent.
To pass time we played yahztee in the car (yes, imagine this). We found gas at the cheapest price (2.69) in South Dakota. I was really excited that we were going to get to see Mount Rushmore, after all; something I’ve dreamed of doing since I was a child. Still a little sad that we had to miss the Grand Canyon, the Redwood forest, tons of things in San Francisco, Adrian’s skiing in Colorado just because we had to get back in time to pick up the car. I didn’t even get to spend as much time as I would have liked admiring the sculpted President’s. It just means we will have to take a more detailed Northwest Adventure trip in the future ; )
As we left Mount Rushmore, Adrian laid his seat back to take a nap. I entered highway 90. Cruise control set on 69mph in a 65mph zone. I passed a police officer in the fast lane, out of respect I turned my cruise control off and dropped to the legal speed limit. Other cars around me are going much faster, a white car in front of me was speeding much faster than I as we got closer to a 75mph zone (which only a local would know was up ahead). Then the police officer pulls out. Typical of my nature I panic, which I do every time a cop pulls out. I wake Adrian and he asks if I was speeding? Well, 4mph over. Then he’s not going to pull you over.
The lights come on… I look behind me. I get over to let the cop pass. He pulls behind me.
Is he seriously pulling me over for 4mph over?
Moral of the story, don’t speed at all in South Dakota. They are bored. They will pull you over. I didn’t get a ticket, but I did waste 45 minutes of my time. You see, I get upset at just the thought of getting pulled over… so then I start talking a lot. About EVERY THING. That poor police officer didn’t know what he was getting into. I am shaking compulsively, talking his ear off… he knows my whole family history and every thing about the road trip.
Because we were pulled over and wasted so much of our time we decided to get a motel. We stopped at a place in MN… sketchy. I am not sure if it was a hotel or someones shed built onto a home. LOL.
You know it is a long trip when you are reminiscing about the trip you are still on.
I have found that the spiritually mature look nothing like the world’s typical adults who have lost their hopes, dreams, passion and vision and are looking to finish their days in quiet retirement. -Outrageous Courage
After staying at the shed we finished the trek to Albany. It was nice to see family, some for a second time on the trip.
Feb 17
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Oregon was a stunning drive. We were worried there would be snow on the road in January. The warm weather has kept it at bay. All we saw was the immense volcano off in the distance. The drive over the lake was extraordinary through Shasta National Forest! There was some fog but it never hindered […]
Ashlee Karin 