Birthday Rides and The Bigger Picture

Yep, in case you didn't catch the title, today, October 4th is my birthday. (cheer!) So for my 17th birthday, we went flying up in a small airplane. It was AWESOME! Totally and absolutely mindblowing. We could see for miles in either direction and the view was breathtaking.
You know, when you're on the interstate, it can feel like your flying over the roads, driving around curves at 75 miles per hour, the wind in your hair, and so on. And yet it always seems to take forever to get to where you're going, right? And isn't that just how life is?
While you're going through it, it's fast and crazy. You find yourself making decisions on the spot, sometimes making the wrong ones, hitting bumps and righting yourself, rounding curves and feeling the thrill when things finally start to go your way. And at the same time, it seems to take forever before you actually get to that age, or that season of life you were living for, only to find out that you missed so much of the scenery in your haste to arrive at that one place.
While I was up in that plane, I got an ariel view of an interstate, and it surprised me how small the cars looked, even though we weren't at such a great hight above them. From our position I could see the curves and the rises and falls of the road, and the beauty that many were missing as the sped by in their little cars. To them, the world was their little Honda or Odessey as it cruised along the highway. But I could see far more. I could see the bigger picture.
I'm sure you've heard how life is like a road, right? You just follow the map (God's Word) and don't take any sideroads and you'll arrive at your destination (heaven). But I think there's more it then that. What good would it be to just fly through life if we were only worried but just getting into heaven? There's so much more to our walk with Christ then that.
The Bible says that all our days will be displayed before the Lord. He will (fyi, he already does!) know everything in our life. How sad it would be for our lives then to picture those little cars driving right by opportunities, the scenic routes, where we would take, not just steps, but leaps of faith, where we would test God's promises and find them to be true. Opportunities in which we spoke when we didn't know quite what to say, met the needs of a person only to find needs, we didn't even know we had, met.
In the bigger picture, those little trips, can add up to a whole lot more.