While traveling near Collinsville Alabama I cross this railroad track.  As the car begins to bounce across the track I stop and gaze down the rails until they reach the horizon.  I then park the car beside the track and place my camera on one of the cross ties beneath the rails and take this picture.  I loved the uniformity of the bent steel spikes, the rough gravel and the straight lines of the rails stretching out before me.

        I look to the north toward Chattanooga, then south toward Birmingham and try to imagine all the beautiful scenery that stretches between these two southern cities.  I can see Trenton Georgia, Valley Head, Fort Payne, Collinsville, and Gadsden all stretching out before my minds eye.  I try to imagine all the gravel lying beneath the thousands of rough cut cross ties.  I quickly realize that I do not have the mathematical skill to calculate the number of steel spikes driven into the cross ties and bent around the rails to hold them down.  How many tons and miles of rails stretch out before me?

        Yes, this was a mighty endeavor; one that took many years of planning and construction to bring to pass.  As my eye follows these lines toward the horizon I begin to see my life stretching out before me like this great railroad track.  My mind sets a thought in motion like a train riding on these rails toward a city called My Destiny.  When I was a child I believed that once I graduated form high school I would be happy.  Only to find that once my train reached that destination, I was still not happy.  You see, life is the journey, not a destination.

        There is no place we can travel to that will bring us total happiness.  A truly fulfilled life is not found in reaching a certain objective, achieving a position or arriving at a long sought after goal.  No, true happiness is found only in enjoying today’s journey.  Forget the setbacks of the past and the anxieties concerning the future and focus on the path laid before you today.  Live your life today with courage, faith and confidence.  Squeeze every bit of life out of this day and share it with those traveling with you.  Living your life to the fullest is a choice.  Enjoy the ride.

Something to think about:

• Our destiny is not determined for us, but it is determined by us. Man’s free will is part of the Masters sovereign will. We have freedom to take which course we choose, but not freedom to determine the end of that choice. He makes clear what he desires but we must choose the direction of our life.

• The future is an opportunity yet unmet, a path yet untraveled, a life yet unlived. But how the future will be lived, what opportunities will be met, what paths traveled, depends on the priorities and purposes of life today.

• Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. Circumstances and situations do color life, but you have been given the mind to choose what the color shall be.

• Never think you could do something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. What you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements, are probably the Lord’s opportunities.

• Life is a journey, not a destination; and happiness is not “there” but here; not tomorrow, but today.

• Regardless of circumstances, each man lives in a world of his own making.

• One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it.

• Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

• A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

Enjoying the journey
Rickey Moore