Do you remember your first car? Mine was a 1972 Chevy Impala, two door hardtop. It was candy apple red with a white top and black interior. I think the car stereo I installed was probably worth more than the car itself. I remember driving around on summer Saturday nights, windows down, stereo blaring, with no particular place to go. Cruising the streets of a small midwestern town was an art form. Aimlessly driving, wasting precious gas (which at that time was 54.9 per gallon), only stopping to talk to others who had stopped as well.
Life as an adult isn’t as aimless. When you grow up, you get student loans, spouses, jobs, mortgages, kids, and other demands that call for responsible behavior. As an adult, I’ve learned that there are three essential elements for travel. First, you have to have a mode of transportation. Planes, trains, and automobiles, for example. Of course walking counts, but only for trips farther than the fridge. Second, you have to have a route that helps you have direction so that you don’t get off course. Finally, you have to have a destination. Those three things are essential to travel. Unless you still enjoy the occasional aimless trek.
Those three elements of travel help me understand what Jesus meant when He said, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me ” (John 14:6). In this simple statement Jesus claimed to be our mode of transportation, our route, as well as our destination. If we lack any one of the three elements we will not find success. Lacking any one of these, I believe, also explains the spiritual aimlessness in our nation today. It takes all three, and Jesus perfectly embodies each one.