The Highway Man

I am on a highway.

The highway leads through the wide open deserts and plain lands, places where the horizon always shivers just out of reach behind its blanket of silvery hot motion.

The shadowy thin line of a distant mountain range lays silently, a sleepy blue watchman guarding its barren land.

My ears hear only the songs of the wind

Songs that move around me and through me, whispering secrets of the deep unsearchable things, stories of places that only the wind has gone as it’s sent from the heavenly lungs.

This highway has never heard the sounds of traffic for it was never that kind of road.

He built this road for me.

Long before I first heard Him calling me, before His hands pulled me forth into the light in the journey we call birth, long before then He had come this way.

He walked the dusty dry land, my Lover did, laying down a path that wouldn’t be touched for years.

He called the mountains to attention, the rocky crags to stand tall. He spoke to the wildflowers and grasslands, commissioning them to keep watch, to wait for me to come this way.

He knew every curve, every bump and turn for He designed it. Then when He reached the end He turned around and walked back along it to wait at the beginning for when I would come.

The dusty wilderness can be a lonely place but this road was never made to be walked alone.

For many long years the clouds passed over it, painting a different picture each day, and night after night the stars breathed out their music performing for His ears alone.

As the time drew closer, the air grew thick with His Spirit, the land pregnant with anticipation of the dance that was about to begin.

Now we walk together on this ancient pathway.

I wear a white dress and my hair flows free, my bare feet dance upon the hot roadway, treading on sacred ground, land that is holy but only because He has already been this way.

I know I’m following the highway, but it doesn’t matter where it seems to be going, because He walks beside me and wherever He is I know I should be too.

He delights in me and I rejoice in Him.

The dandelions on the edges of the road bow down when He passes, their gentle seeds being released to dance before Him.

The tough desert grass flattens itself in worship when he comes close and the wildflowers open to display all of their colourful praises when they hear his footsteps approaching.

All of nature exalts Him, paying homage to the Road Builder but even as I walk beside Him I sometimes mistake it for the wind or the seasons, my eyes are not open to the majesty of the One whom I travel with.

I only know I love Him. And for now, that is enough for Him.

The edge of the road are cracked and worn, disappearing into the hot sand and breaking off into the grass. It would be easy to walk off the highway and into the wilderness, but my Lover keeps me close, gently pointing me in the direction He laid out long ago.

One day we will reach the end of the highway together, at the place where every highway He has ever built comes together.

At the horizon, just beyond the shimmering wall of heat, where the dusty roads join and become a river of living water flowing out of the desert and into eternity.

And when I reach that river and wash in the water, my eyes will open and my heart will fully recognise the One with whom I walked.

Then like all of creation I will bow down before the Road Builder.