When I was younger, every once in a while I would wake up around midnight, get in the car, and start driving.
Where was I going?
Nowhere in particular.
That was sort of the point.
I’d get on the highway and just drive. Back then, midnight was different. Almost every store was closed. There were no twenty-four-hour everything places glowing on every corner. Most people were home. Most people were asleep.
The highways could feel almost empty.
About the only place you could count on being open was an all-night diner. I’m not sure what it is about a diner in the middle of the night, but it feels different. Maybe everything feels different at two in the morning.
I liked seeing the world while the world was asleep.
No traffic jams. No crowds. No people rushing from one place to another. Buildings were still there. Roads were still there. Streetlights were still doing their job.
Just fewer people.
It was almost like getting a private showing of the world.
And it was fun.
There wasn’t a destination. There wasn’t a schedule. I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything. Imagine that. Wayne in a car with nowhere he had to be.
Sometimes we become so accustomed to seeing the world at the same times, from the same places, while doing the same things, that we forget how different it can look when we change one little thing.
Like the clock.
Maybe you don’t need a vacation.
Maybe you just need to see your ordinary world at an unusual hour.
Of course, I’m not suggesting you drag yourself out of bed exhausted and wander onto the highway half asleep. That would be a different kind of LifeNudge.
But maybe, just maybe, there’s a nighttime roadtrip in your future.
No grand destination required.
Just go see what the world looks like while most of it is sleeping.
Shift/Insight
Sometimes outrageous fun doesn’t require going someplace extraordinary. It may simply require experiencing someplace ordinary differently.
Today’s Nudge
Pick a night. Stay local. Get in the car, turn off the agenda, and take a drive somewhere familiar when it doesn’t feel familiar at all.
Faith Connection
There is something strangely peaceful about a quiet world. Scripture reminds us to “be still.”
Maybe stillness isn’t always sitting still.
Sometimes it is simply getting quiet enough to notice the world God already put around us.