It lurched back and forth over the uneven trail, bumping along and jostling the passengers and cargo. It didn’t go fast, but the wheels left marks. The marks were evidence where this wagon traveled. As we travel through this life, we leave evidence where we have been. We leave a trail. We leave a mark, mostly on the people that we have known.

 

Let’s take a look at the wagon wheel; a hub, spokes, and rim. Simple. If we draw an analogy:

 

The “HUB” = The Lord, our God – the Center of it all

The “SPOKES” = The individual writers of all of the Biblical Books

The “RIM” – The completed Scripture

 

And the wagon is you and me, making our way….. So, what’s IN the wagon?

 

What’s IN the wagon are what we’ve concentrated on most. And the items we focused on have different “weights” in God’s eyes. The deeply spiritual items we embrace and hold dear that have eternal significance are like spiritual gold, heavy and valuable. The things we enjoyed that are for amusement or shallow efforts are like ping pong balls.

 

When we deeply pray for people’s needs or concerns, and have no concern for self-advancement or gain; God looks at those prayers as what He loves! When we pay things forward, when we offer acts of kindness, when we give generously in time and resources, when we volunteer in His name, the load become heavy with value.

 

Looking at the tracks made through life, we can tell the depth of the ruts we leave behind what kind of life we lived. When we made a deep impression in people’s hearts and lives, the impression is like one left by wagon wheels in the dirt. It can be seen by many of those after us what kind of impression we made.

 

A wagon full of balloons and ping pong balls indicates a life that made no impression at all spiritually. The ruts are shallow, meaning a life spent on things that had no eternal significance.

 

“Lord, let us search the Scriptures and align ourselves with the qualities that God values. He specifies these in the Bible. Win souls to Christ; disciple new converts with patience; live with passion, power and humility. Instill in us to reach for excellence all of our days, and allow us to be fruitful and purposeful. Love, laugh, pray, do, and be gentle in receiving. Get us to cast off the balloons and ping pong balls of this life. Help us, Lord; to see how to load our wagons! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”