Good evening brethren and Happy Sabbath!

Parallels

Have you ever noticed how many parallels there are in life? Take for example a straight stretch of two lane road. Two lanes, one for each direction, perfectly parallel to one another.  While it doesn’t really seem all that fascinating, it is kind of amazing when think what it means.

By having two parallel lanes, two cars can be traveling opposite directions at high rates of speed only inches apart. While there are certain potential dangers, it happens most of the time without incident.  You might be traveling from work to home going one direction, while someone else is on a parallel path going from home to work.

Parallel vs. Direction

As illustrated in the example above, two things being parallel to one another don’t necessarily mean they are going the same direction.  In fact, they can be traveling the opposite direction.  Of course, if we expand this example to an interstate, then you have parallel lines traveling in the same direction, al least on one side of the interstate.

The example of parallel paths can apply to more than roads. Our lives sometimes parallel those of others, even those we read about in the Bible.  Sometimes, we want to go the same direction they are going, and other times, we’d be best served to be heading in the opposite direction their lives went.

The Life of Gideon

Of course, the only life we truly want to parallel and travel the same direction He did was Jesus Christ. But that doesn’t mean there are no other examples in the Bible we can look at or that we can’t learn from them, even when they were traveling the wrong direction.

As those in Charlotte and Hickory heard last week, and those in Columbia will hear tomorrow, there are quite a few ways in which our lives parallel the life of Gideon. Gideon’s life is quite interesting in that in some ways, we want our lives to travel the same direction his did, and in other ways, we definitely don’t!