Get Your Kicks

As seen in the HEARTbeat and the Village Voice

“Get Your Kicks”

            The majority of people over the age of 60 can finish this statement: “Get your kicks ………”  If you said, “on route 66” you’d be absolutely correct.  Route 66 was one of the most famous highways in the United States in the 20th century.  Its origin began in 1926 and was finished in the late 1930’s, long before the initial phase of the vast interstate systems we know today.

            Route 66 linked the city of Chicago, Illinois with Santa Monica, California in Los Angeles County.  From start to finish the trip was 2,448 miles from Illinois through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and terminating in California.  It was amazing to people that they could get on a highway east of the Mississippi river and drive all the way to the Pacific Ocean and not change roads!  The route was even glamorized in the 1946 song sung by Nat King Cole’s group and written by Bobby Troup.

            To people traveling the route, it wasn’t the destination but the journey.  Businesses and attractions sprang up all along the route and made the journey an experience.  But after the completion of the interstate system, entire towns who had their majority of their revenue derived from tourism died because people no longer traveled through their towns.  On a motorcycle trip my wife and I took several years ago, we visited a portion of Route 66 in Oklahoma.  Grass was growing out of every crack and crevasse in the concrete pavement showing a lack of travel, or basically a loss of joy in traveling the historic route.

            Do you know of anyone who has lost the joy of this life?  Are these people just waiting on the joy of entering the golden streets of Heaven?  The world may think Christians are supposed to be walking around, hands folded in prayer toward Heaven, and leading sorrowful and miserable lives.  This is the price to pay to enter Heaven, so they think.  But some Christians even agree with this premise to a certain degree.  My response – hogwash!

            Jesus’ words are recorded in the gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (NIV).  You may remember from your childhood days of the King James version as, “and have it more abundantly.”  Jesus laughed with His friends.  I even guess Jesus pulled a few pranks on poor old Simon Peter just for giggles.  Bottom line is this:  Jesus paid the price on the cross so we can have life to its fullest – here on earth!  He even said just that in the above verse.  The enemy wants to rob you of your joy, kill your happiness, and destroy the wonderful days you CAN have in the Lord!

            We will all have overwhelming joy when we get to our forever home.  But don’t wait!  God wants you to have some kicks on the route 66 He has planned for you in this life.  Remember, a Christian’s life is not about the destination, it’s about touching lives on the journey!