I was driving through an industrial area in a light snow this afternoon when suddenly, T and G’s trains popped into my mind. T and G’s is a small model railroad store which has been around since the 1950’s, and despite its new location, still looks about the same.

When I walk in there I can feel my blood pressure drop, and I feel warm; it’s like going back to my childhood. There are about a dozen shelves, stocked with every type of train from every part of North America. They have New York Central, Buffalo Creek, Chicago and Eastern Illinois, LeHigh and New England, CN, and CP locomotives to name just a few, as well as hundreds of boxcars, flatbeds, tankcars, and cabooses from dozens of railroad companies. These come in many sizes and colors, with every possible design and logo on them. Next to that, T and G’s has all kinds of boxes, filled with kits to make houses, factories, cottages, barns, and town buildings; and there are also miniature cars and people and animals – and little light poles that really work. I wish I could live in this store.

As soon as I walk in I feel different, as the two men, both in their early sixties, are in no hurry to serve me. They are usually sitting and chatting about railroad stuff with a couple of regulars, and I sense that the details of the story change each time it is told. Both men have a grandfatherly look about them – one has a potbelly, and the other has nicely cut grey hair. When they see me they don’t do anything other than look up for a moment and nod. I get that same feeling when I see a cow in a field as I drive by.

On the ceiling hangs a television which plays a video of a train layout that someone in Alabama has made. On it I see a little model train moving through the countryside and into a small town, where it parks in front of a soap factory to load up. The scenery is so realistic, all except for the model people, who don’t move, and the cars which are way too shiny and clean to be real. I think about the love, intelligence, and patience that must have gone into building that train layout. The owner would have designed it by researching the real line that was around at that time, early 1950’s, and built all the houses, businesses, farms, and town buildings to be the same as the real thing. This would have taken thousands of hours.

What slowly came to my mind was how the world has changed since then. In his model the people are standing outside places and talking – not imprisoned inside a small room hypnotized by a computer screen. There are cars driving in the country, and people patting dogs – which is how things actually were back then. People relaxed. In the video the freight train is moving along at a lazy pace, and I can hear the clickity-clickity-clack of the wheels on the track. The rhythm, even thought it’s just a model, is nothing like the unreal pace that things go at today: it’s soothing. In the town part I see a movie theatre, which in the fifties would have had adventure and cowboy movies, rather that blood, murder, and creepy plots. In the video, the train passes by some kids swimming beside a wooden bridge – Who does that anymore?

The point of this article is that God didn’t create us to live our lives at the hectic pace we currently do. God created a natural world, with mountains, streams, fields, animals, and beauty. I can’t see God being happy seeing people running around uselessly chasing their careers, possessions, and status. I think the Bible supports my opinion.

Genesis 2:3 states: “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on this day He rested….” We need to rest.

Psalms 46:10, God states: “Be still and know that I am God ….” We need to keep still and quiet in order that we may appreciate God, rather than ourselves.

I Corinthians 14:33 states: “God is not the God of confusion, but of peace.” Since God is peace, we must have peace in our hearts and minds as well. However, we can’t get this by chasing after the things of this world.

I think the life God wants for us is somewhat like my visit to the train store. It is unhurried, where people have time to chat with friends, and where we build things to keep our minds busy and away from sin. The train store gives us a look into how things used to be: farms, small towns, swimming in country streams; a place and time where people were part of a community. Of interest to me, is that in the man’s layout, the tiny train passes by two tiny churches on its circuit. This is how it used to be. God’s plan is a world where we are focused on Him, and not on ourselves. To do this, we need to slow down.

As I was walking about the store I could here the talk of some real live train crews as they talked on the radio. The men at T and G’s have a radio that picks up the talk of these folk. I heard a man say to one of the drivers “Stop by twenty-eighth, Bob and Bill are there, you can pick them up for lunch.” The other man chuckled and said “Yeah, sure.” Bob and Bill were probably working at a spot called “twenty-eighth” and in a few moments their friends would roll by in a slow moving locomotive to pick them up for a long and unhurried lunch. How warm and relaxed their voices sounded. We need to slow down.