My road name is Double D.  Has been for the last forty years.  I am amazed that a lot of folks don't know who I really am,  but that's not important.  I was a different person under my "Christian" name.  I was anything but a Christian.  After six years in the Army as a salvage diver, with two of those years spent in Vietnam, I really needed a change.  I came home with a bad attitude and not a whole lot of concern for anyone or anything.  There were a lot of guys who had it a lot worse than I did,  but we all had to do things that at the time seemed necessary.

I hurt a lot of people by the things I said or did and I really didn't care one way or the other. That was my personality.  Traveling down the proverbial one-way road, I was too dumb to see that the bridge was out and I didn't have the speed to make the jump.  Playing hard, drinking hard, and planting my wild oats in any willing field, I was headed for destruction.

Something real strange happened on that road.  Just like the line from the movie, "Top Gun", I was writing checks, my body couldn't cash.  The plain truth is, I really knew better.  I had been introduced to this man Jesus, but I just shook hands and walked on.  His lifestyle was much too rigid for me.  There was no way I could live the "holy" life He demanded.  He was a neat guy,  loved everybody, and even claimed to be the Son of God, but that just wasn't for me.

 Life has a way of providing little pot-holes in the road that can jar the hell out of you, or sense into you.  Fortunately, the holes jarred some sense into me, and I let God take the hell out of me.  I was newly married to a wonderful young lady who was a Christian almost from birth,  okay, from a young age, and she loved me in spite of me.  I never cheated on her but when I was away from home on jobs, I was doing a lot of things she never knew about.  I went to church on Sunday, and got high on and off while on the road. 

One day I met this man Jesus from my life so long ago, through reading the Bible and watching real Christians. Not just Sunday, dress-up and go to meeting Christians, but those people who lived the same way during the week, that they lived on Sunday when the preacher and deacons were present. What's really cool, as I got to know Him, Jesus wasn't anything like what people had told me He was like.  I mean, He said, Double D,  I don't care what you did in the past, you can start out new and fresh.  I told Him about some of the rotten things I had done, and He said, "I know, I was watching from the window".  I loved you even before you loved me, or my Father.

When I got up from that encounter with Jesus, I felt like a ton of weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  I no longer had guilt over the things I had done.  I was no longer afraid that if  I was swept me off  life's  highway,  I was on a one-way ride straight to hell.  I slept better, the trees looked greener, and it was easier to accept people just as they were. There is just no way to describe the feeling.  I have been told that you can have a relationship with God without the fireworks and the goose-bumps, but that's not the way it happened to me.  For once in my life, I knew, that I knew, this was the real thing.  I had tried Buddhism, Shintoism, and all the other "is'ms", but it was never like this.

Since that day, this has been on heaven of a ride.  Yep, there are still bumps in the road, and sometimes I ride in the rain.  It gets cold, and the Devil tries to detour my ride, but Jesus is always the Road Captain. He knows the route, and the destination.  And guess what, Jesus loves motorcycles and Bikers.  I mean, He really loves Bikers!  He has blessed me with the awesome job of telling other bikers that He loves them too. 

If you are riding down this highway of life and you are tired, hot and dry, give this man Jesus a try.  He can energize your life, give you living water, and give you a new destination.

Double D