WACKY WEDNESDAY WISDOM: Escaping from Captivity

      You see some interesting stuff when you travel halfway across the country in a truck with your wife. The reason for our recent adventure was to deliver some stuff, including the truck, to our middle son who lives in Lubbock, Texas. We set out an a Thursday afternoon and arrived both weary and excited at his front door on Saturday afternoon. We spent the first night in Jackson, Tennessee and Friday night in Elk City, Oklahoma. Our goal was to make Amarillo by the next morning so we could arrive in Lubbock by lunchtime on Saturday.

     Somewhere between Elk City and Shamrock, Texas- my wife and I laid eyes on one of the more interesting sites on our journey. "We've got to turn around and go back to take a picture of that," she beckoned. I obliged. It was worth the ten or so extra minutes to find the next exit, go back from whence we came, and proceed past the object of our interest on the other side of the interstate, take another exit, and then head back in the same direction we had been traveling before. (Were you able to follow all that? Don't feel bad if you weren't. I was lost, too).

     We pulled off the side of the road and snapped a few pics as several 18 wheelers blasted past us. It was worth it. The road sign read: "HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPING INMATES".

     Here were my immediate thoughts after reading the sign, in no particular order:

1. Poor hitchhikers. Even if you're legitimately and honestly trying to thumb a ride, ain't nobody gonna pick you up after reading that- especially if you're wearing striped pajamas.

2. Poor escaped inmates. You're in the middle of nowhere: tumbleweeds, no water, teeny little towns only every 35 miles or so, and now they've taken away one of your only good options. Especially if you're wearing striped pajamas. 

3. Poor prison warden. There's no way you've got any job security when enough prisoners are escaping that they have to put up a sign out on the highway to warn people. Maybe a few extra strips of barbed wire on top of the fence or something. Just sayin'. 

*Here's an idea: Everybody wearing striped pajamas has to be in their room (cell) by 9pm each night. And during the day, place guards in the towers to make sure the people in the striped pajamas don't try to climb over the barbed wire fences. 

4. Poor me. I will never wear pajamas with stripes again. 

     Jesus proclaims in Luke 4:18- "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to set the captives free, that the blind will see, and that the oppressed will be set free."

     This sounds like a good deal to me. I was a prisoner at one point in my life. Not in the warden's penitentiary, but one within myself. The one where I couldn't escape my own sinfulness. But then I was set free. And I was set free by one who was wearing the stripes I should have been wearing. But they weren't pajamas. They were bloody stripes on his body received because of my transgressions. His stripes were my victory. It's a good deal for me and it's a good deal for you. 

     I didn't see any hitchhikers (striped pajamas or otherwise) between Elk City, OK and Shamrock, TX- but I kinda wish I would have. It would have made for a better story, even though there's no way I could have stopped to pick one of them up. I was too busy trying to make Amarillo by Morning.