The Bus Runs
They tell me they can’t get out of here…and I say to them, man, the bus runs every day.
Morgan Freeman during an interview after questions about racism and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps gives this example. People tell me I’d like to have done this or that but I can’t. They tell me they can’t get out of here…and I say to them, man, the bus runs every day.
Of course, after these words, Morgan and the host laugh, because it’s true. But I can empathize with both sides. After my graduation from high school, I found a bus out of that town heading back home.
On the flip side of that coin, after looking for a job in the big city back home I had to settle for a job in the little town waiting tables, then another job in the little town as a nurses aide.
A few weeks ago Old Fuzzy and I watched a movie called What If. In the movie the main character is about to make a decision that will take him forever away from a godly life but before he finishes that decision God interrupts him with a what-if moment.
There are some memorial moments in this movie as it challenges the character to understand the contrast in what he thought he was looking for against what he could have had. Then to make the choice based on what he found.
Like many people, he believed money and lots of it, along with prestige, and powerful influence would make him happy. Contrast that to a life of servitude and humility it should be a no-brainer.
So, where does it go from here? James 4:2 “…ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. That is plucked out of the middle of a line of scripture, and only partly addresses the problem. The point is and this goes especially for children of God, when scripture in 1Corinthians 10:13 says …God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
A person has to look for a way of escape and sometimes a person must ask and look for the way to go. In a nutshell, the bus may run every day but if you’re looking to leave for a better situation you must look and you must ask because there are a lot of buses running every day, but not all of them are going somewhere better.
Too many instances we don’t do one or the other, and sometimes we don’t do either to look or to ask.
If we are trying to find a way of escape to something better—in other words trying to find the right bus that will take us to something better—looking for the way, asking God to provide and show the way are good first steps but another thing we must do is leave our baggage behind.
How many times people may get as far as getting on the bus and making a start, but when they arrive at their destination they are the same old person with all their doubts, fears, and foibles. They set up camp bringing their old self with them so they took the bus out only to be their old self in a new place.
Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
When we come up out of the watery grave as Christians we are supposed to leave the old man of sin behind. As a person wanting to be on a better bus headed to someplace better there is no better bus to be on than the one headed to heaven.
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
