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The Million Dollar Roadbed

In Western Colorado there is a road called the Million Dollar Highway. My guess is that both tourists and even most of the people who live on the western slope don't know how this road got its name.

They probably assume it got its name because it was expensive to build. That's not correct—although it probably was expensive to build because it runs through very difficult terrain and at a high altitude. The real reason it's called the Million Dollar Highway is because waste material from the ore in gold mines was used as the bed for that highway, and not all the gold dust and nuggets were removed by the mining processes available at the time. As a result, there is a partial roadbed of gold that is probably worth a lot more than a million dollars.

It isn't the cost that gave it its name, but rather what is inside it.

The same is true for the royal law of love ("Love your neighbor as yourself"). Sure it's costly, but what gives it the name is what it is made of: it is made up of God, the God who is love."

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