No Parking!

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owntown Fort Worth is a wonderful place to visit.  There are all types of shops, numerous restaurants, wonderful bookstores, great places to get a cup of coffee, a superb performance hall, and good movie theaters where you can catch the latest flick.  Yes, it is a wonderful place, provided you can find a parking space!  This is especially true in the evenings and on the weekends when the entire population, it seems, pours into the downtown area to enjoy all it has to offer.   

On more than one occasion I have ventured downtown and found myself in a battle to find an empty space to park my car.  The lots are either full or I find myself confronted with ever-present and all-to-familiar information sign, “No Parking!”  One Saturday afternoon, I decided to spend some time looking through the various shops downtown.  I got in my car and took the fifteen-minute drive into the city.  But there was no where to park!  All the lots were full, all the spaces were taken, and there literally was no available space to be seen.

After several minutes of circling the city, after putting several miles on my car, and after wearing down the tread on my tires, I gave up in desperation and decided to return to the seminary to bandage my wounds.  I was frustrated and angry.  Everywhere I looked I saw a “No Parking” sign so I just kept driving until I returned home!  Have you ever been there?  Have you ever been frustrated by a traffic sign?  To top it all off, someone had written me a nice letter requesting that I pay my phone bill!  What a day!  All I wanted was a parking space, not a headache!

But after I returned home and cooled down a little bit, I realized there was actually a blessing in my little afternoon adventure.  Had I found a parking space downtown, I would have been tempted to stroll into the shops, get some coffee, buy a book, or see movie and spend more money than I had anticipated.  Then I would have been hard-pressed to pay the phone bill which was more of a priority than a cup of coffee.  Now, please don’t get me wrong. I can afford a cup of coffee and my phone bill, the question here is one of priority.

The Apostle Paul understood the idea of not parking in the Christian life.  He knew that following hard after Jesus and walking with God is the single most important priority of life.  Parking spaces, Paul knew, sometimes lead to trouble.  They get us off the road; they stop our forward progress for a while, and allow our minds to wonder through all the shops life has to offer.  When we are in the shops, it is easy for us to get our priorities skewed and out of balance.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13b-14). This is the great secret of the Christian life—forward motion!  Notice that Paul admonishes his readers to keep pressing on toward the goal.  The one focus, the one goal, the one aim of our lives must be Jesus Christ who alone can supply all our needs and satisfy our souls.

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ut in modern terms, Paul would be telling his readers to take notice of the “No Parking” signs and to keep moving forward.  The world offers many things but these things can never fulfill us in the way God does.  Browsing among the world’s shops, drinking from its fountains, and walking idly along can lead us to confuse our priorities and to get our eyes off of Christ!  However, if we keep our eyes on him, if we keep moving forward, we will find that our priorities are in the right place, that our needs are met, and our souls will be satisfied.  Are you looking for a parking place today?  Pay attention to those “No Parking” signs!  They just might be blessings in disguise!