PHOTO BY BRAD CAMPBELL Ohio welcome sign

Hi, all! 

Do you know where you are? On our road trips, my wife and I try to get a photo as we cross every state line. If there is a “welcome center” we will stop there as well. Perhaps we are just introducing ourselves to a new state. Usually we are stretching our legs and taking the necessary commercial breaks. But on these stops, we always make a point to take a picture of the sign that notifies us of our location. 

Obviously, this one announced that we had crossed the line into the state of Ohio. How else would we have known where we were?

I don’t know that I would have believed a sign that said “Alabama” that particular day, because we were definitely a long way from home. But I might have believed a Pennsylvania sign, for instance, as we were in that vicinity. So why announce the location so boldly?

Don’t travelers of the world’s roads need to know where they are? I realize many of you have learned to depend upon a GPS system or some other such electronic voice to tell you where to turn. Some of us old fogies still love the look and feel of a paper map. Either way, those signs along life’s highways remind us of our location, perhaps give a hint as to how far we’ve come, or how far we have to go. And some signs, like the one you see here, simply tell us where we’ve stopped for a moment or two.

We need to be reminded where we stand. God’s Word is full of verse after verse that do that very thing. The Lord wants us to remember that as we travel these long, sometimes lonely, sometimes extremely busy, roads in life, He is always wherever we are.

Long ago, when I was a college student, some friends and I always joked that “Wherever you go, there you are!” Well, this week, as you navigate a schedule and route known only to God, may you be reminded by the largest signs possible that He is there too!

You may not know where you are, but you can be guaranteed His location — with you.

Just a thought. ’Til later.

Brad Campbell can be reached at mastah.pastah@yahoo.com.