I Hear the Train a Comin’

Living inside each of us is the little boy or girl we were growing up. Memory lets that child still come out and play at times. Fortunately he grew up before social media and lots of tech stuff came along. There were no toys or teams. A child had to learn to entertain himself.

Recently my past little boy came out and played for a short time like he did as a child. Now as then he hung out at the train depot a lot.  Lessons were learned there. One was the empty box cars rumbled along making lots of noise. The loaded cars ran quietly. Even as a child I got the analogy. Empty headed people make the most noise.

Without technology a clever method to send and deliver mail was devised. Not all trains stopped in our little town. Maybe they were down at Petticoat Junction. The man in the mail car threw off a heavy canvas bag with the incoming mail. To send a letter an ingenious device was used. An inverted “L” shaped device has a rope strung in a triangular shape with the mail bag attached. The mail man in the mail car would hang out and hook the triangular rope and thereby pick-up the mail. The messages had to be exchanged. 

There was another more meaningful analogy learned at the depot. We lived near the track. The newest, fastest, and most luxurious of trains, the City of New Orleans” ran through town. Folks came out to see it. Let me set the scene in order to make the parallel easier to comprehend. 

North of town was a duck pond with a train bridge across it. We lived in a big old two story house. My room was upstairs. When the City of New Orleans crossed the duck pond it was still too far away to be seen or heard. However, there must have been a geological fault that caused it, but when the train crossed over the duck pond a rocking chair in my room would vibrate. When the chair vibrated there was just enough time to get to the track and see that modern marvel. We knew about what time the train was coming so we made sure someone was sitting in that rocking chair and could feel the vibration and give us a warning.

Conservative Christians have a message that needs to be gotten out. It is now easier to do than in those creative days. Diligence and consistency are needed to get it out.

Now the City of New Orleans. It provided signs it was coming by virtue of the vibrating chair. There are even more accurate signs of another coming, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bible scholars in considering the signs of His coming say all essential signs that are to precede His coming have been fulfilled. There is just enough time to prepare. Live with that expectation and be motivated by it to be and do your best in all things in order to be ready.

Well, that’s all from my little boy self. He must go back in the memory depot.

A line from a Johnny Cash song says it all: “I hear the train a comin’, It’s rolling round the bend….”