Will We Ever Learn?

A prestigious automobile club in Italy came up with the idea for a race called the Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles), a jealous response to not being chosen to host the famous Italian Grand Prix. The first Mille Miglia was held in March 1927. All of the leading Italian drivers entered the race which coursed a thousand miles of public roads from Brescia to Rome. The winner finished in slightly over twenty hours at an average speed of seventy-seven kilometers per hour (48 mph). The Italian government banned the race in 1938 when a racer spun out-of-control and killed ten spectators including seven children. The race resumed briefly during the early years of World War II; however, it was soon banned again. After the war ended in 1945, much of Europe’s infrastructure had to be rebuilt making the race impossible to run. Finally, on June 21, 1947, 155 race cars entered the fourteenth Mille Miglia. However, ten years later tragedy struck again when a driver spun out of control killing himself, his co-driver, and ten spectators. After this tragedy, the Italian government banned all racing on the public streets of Italy.Read the story here.

Unfortunately, we have a habit of failing to learn lessons that are right before us. How many times have the actions of people proven that so-called good ideas birthed from wrong motives usually end in disaster? Our prisons are full of people who thought they had a good idea at the time. Millions of marriages have been destroyed because a husband or wife thought an affair was a good idea at the time. How many teenagers lives and futures have been tragically altered because they thought having sex before marriage was a good idea at the time? Moreover, how many devastated lives of children born or never allowed to be born after teenage sexual immorality prove that ideas birthed from wrong motives usually end in disaster?

The Bible is clear that all we do in our lives should be done from one grand controlling motive–the glory of God. When our thoughts, attitudes, decisions, conversations, and actions pass through the filter of God’s word, arise from a desire to allow God to rule and reign in our hearts, and aim at honoring God, we can trust that the outcomes will be for our good and for God’s glory. Our lives are gifts from God. He never intended us live life racing at high speeds in the direction away from him. Jesus clearly said, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mat. 7:13-14). Check your motives; set your heart on God’s glory; get on and stay on the path that leads to eternal life; and, remember, a good idea born out of an ungodly motive is a bad idea and a disaster waiting to happen.

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