When I overheard that question at McDonald’s, I laughed out loud. (Did you know that people look at you funny if you are sitting by yourself and laugh out loud?)  I couldn’t help but chuckle. Here was an intelligent looking man with a nice car and a nice family who didn’t have a clue where he was. And he was asking for help from a teenage worker at a fast food restaurant!
It got funnier when he tried to say the name of the town.  He pronounced Adel like “a Dell” – as in “get a Dell, Dude.” Around here, Adel rhymes with “pray tell” as in, “Pray tell, you ain’t from Adel, are you?”
I understood the man’s confusion, though. His senses had been dulled by the human migration on I-75. When I’d started south earlier, it looked like the entire state of Indiana had been abandoned; every motor vehicle was being evacuated to Florida. An endless line of Hoosier license plates barreled south for a week of sand, seafood, and sunburn
It looked like fun. Except that it wouldn’t last. Across the median, the northbound lanes were equally packed with people who already used up their week of fun.  It was back to the grind for them.
Life can be a lot like that. We rush through weeks of work so we can rush off for a few vacation days that quickly evaporate. Then we hurry back to work again. Round and round we go. After a few years of that, you can’t help but wonder if you’re getting anywhere.
Here’s another depressing thought. Have you ever noticed that in a real sense, all highways are dead ends? You can only drive so far south in Florida before I-75 runs out. Same with heading north – or east, or west. The road can only take you so far before you have to get off. Same with life’s highway.
There is, however, one road that goes on – a road that leads to life beyond. “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it,” Jesus said (Matthew 7:14).
Only a few find it, not because it’s hidden, but because many never look. It’s a very healthy thing to stop along the way often to ask, “Where am I?” The road we travel determines the destination we will reach.
A Word from Williams Road is provided by the Williams Road Church.