Well, here we are again, facing a brand new year, Year 2026, or I should say, “Route 2026”. Can you believe it? 2026! Could you ever believe that we would come to such a numbering of years? Surely we can cry, “Come Lord Jesus!” I remember when I was nine years old, lying down at night on the grass with our neighbor’s young boys, my friends, and looking up into the starry night and asking aloud, “I wonder what it’s going to be like in the year 2000?” We couldn’t even put that year in our minds! It was somewhere way off into the future. Of course, it was about the year 1968 at that point. Some “40 odd years” away from that time. We would ponder the events of Walt Disney’s “Tomorrow Land” and think about all the predictions he was making back then, people flying their own individual “flying cars”, going to the moon on a rocket ship, living in “modern push-button homes” with screens that would pop up showing who was at the front door or some recipe for a “homecooked meal”, and other future events that were just too wild for us to imagine. Yet, all of those things and more have come true! Not all that Walt imagined have happened, but I suspect that they will before long. Oh, and the comic strip “Dick Tracy” with “walkie-talkie wrist watches” with miniature TV screens on them so you can see who you were talking to, these have become a reality as well. Who could imagine all these fancy new inventions ever happening? And there are things, inventions, and abilities that are yet to happen! But they will.
And now, Route 2026 is quickly approaching! Have you thought about it yet? What are your plans? What are your hopes? What are your wishes? Here is the thing. We are all major construction builders, building bridges and routes that are yet to be determined, but we, you and I, are the builders of events to come on our own, individual Route 2026. How are we going to build? That is the question before us.
Let me offer you a few passages that will help you to build this road called “Route 2026”. Maybe they can act as your guide. You know, we all need a road map. My wife can travel to some place and remember how to get to it the next time. I, on the other hand, have to use a “road map” until I’ve got it down in my mind. So, here are a few “road maps” for you.
