When I arrived at the church this morning, I noticed the New Creation ladies were already there doing their Bible study. Instead of going in, I sat in the parking lot for a while and then decided to go for a ride on some back road in the country. In my younger days those rides on the back roads never led to anything good, but were a route taken to avoid getting caught doing what I shouldn’t have been doing. But what a blessing this morning to get out and go a backroad route and listen to the worship music slowly paving my way. I was so blessed that I just started praying out loud to the Lord over the music, and before I knew it, I got caught on the back roads. It was the Lord who jumped in the truck with me as I was praying for different people and the things they were going through in life. And what I discovered is that Jesus Christ is on the back roads. He doesn’t need a cathedral or a nice chapel, but only an atmosphere He feels welcomed and wanted in. There were two men in the Bible who Jesus found on the back roads. They were headed home to Emmaus on the day rumors were circulating that the body of Jesus was missing from the tomb. In Luke 24 it says,
“Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.”
I don’t know, it seems a little strange to me that Jesus would take the time to go for a seven mile walk with two men who had given up their hopes in Him. It’s strange, too, that Jesus could have taken the main road into the streets of Jerusalem, but stayed on the back roads. He patiently walked with the two all the way to Emmaus, and would have kept going, except they insisted He stay with them. As a result, their eyes were opened to the Lord and they immediately returned to Jerusalem. This should give us some encouragement today knowing that there are those walking and riding on the back roads of life who can have an encounter with the Savior of the world. There is hope for people in the back woods and on the back roads, because even there He will show up and touch their lives. Those two headed to Emmaus were on the back road of unbelief, but Jesus saw them, joined them, and restored their faith in Him.