I know a picture says a thousand words but since I can’t add the pictures I would like, I will just have to use my words. Don’t panic, though. The average devotional in its entirety is around 750 words. Since I’m about to describe several pictures, that should set your minds at ease.
There is a travel website called Bon Voyage. Several articles combine to tell you about some of the most dangerous roads in the world. Even with the beautiful countryside backdrops, danger lurks on these much-travelled paths.
The Sichuan-Tibet Highway in China, Patiopoulo-Perdikaki Road in Greece, the Transfăgărășan, DN7C of Romania, the Los Caracoles which takes you from Chile to Argentina, and Stelvio Pass in the Alps of Italy are some of the most complicated roads to travel. They look like a civil engineer took a long strand of ribbon, tossed it into the air, and however the ribbon landed became the path of the roads. Try this experiment yourself with some ribbon on a windy day. You will have created your own highway! They are so treacherous that the road in China alone has claimed 82,000 lives in the last 20 years!
Another set of roads provide a different problem. Khardungla Pass in India, Yungas Road in Bolivia, Caucasus Road in Russia, Apache Trail in Arizona, Guoliang Tunnel in China, The Road of Skippers Canyon in New Zealand, and Nanga Parbat Pass of Pakistan share some similar features. Extremely high altitudes. Single lanes – barely. Roads cut on the sides of mountains. Distracting scenery. No guard rails. Fog. Random herds of animals. Rock slides. MANY deaths each year.
There are other roads that provide their own special kind of danger. Federal Highway 1 in Mexico features many freighters and large commercial vehicles. However, drivers of those vehicles aren’t required to have so much as a standard driver’s license, much less a Class A CDL.
Cotopaxi Volcano Road in Ecuador is just what it says – a road running alongside the volcano. It is still an active volcano. The road is unpaved and must be travelled slowly. How many people will drive slowly when the volcano erupts?
The A44 in United Kingdom is interesting. Those Brits love to drive on the “wrong” side of the road. However, this highway does something bizarre. At one point, the lanes switch direction. Why?!? Confused drivers cause a lot of accidents.
Many other roadways captured my attention in the article but the last one I’ll tell you about is Commonwealth Avenue in the Philippines. Black-topped. Striped lanes for 7.5 miles. And it’s known as “Killer Highway” because it can have as many as 18 lanes. Imagine what merging must be like!
There is actually one road, though, that is worse than all these combined. Matthew 7:13 says, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.” The Biblical “broad way” is the road that travels straight to eternal hell and it is a crowded road.
The next verse, Matthew 7:14, tells us about “Strait Gate Road.” “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Fewer people are on this road that leads to life. The masses of the world are not on the road that leads to Heaven.
Which road are YOU on today? One leads to certain life, the other to certain death. God’s saving grace will put you on the right road.
And, in case you’re wondering, today’s devotional is 585 words, not including this last paragraph. Way below the average and not bad for describing 16 “pictures.”
Images are taken from https://pixabay.com/, https://www.pexels.com/, or https://unsplash.com/images or created in Windows Copilot. According to the websites, they are Royalty Free and free to be used for our purposes.
