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Are You Enjoying Your
Journey? It's 7 A.M., the car is packed, the
kids are in the back seat, everyone is strapped in, and
you're headed for a two-week vacation at the beach. With you
and your spouse sharing the wheel and driving straight
through you can make it to your vacation haven in about 24
hours, counting food and nature stops. If you stop at night
it will take at least two full days to get there and the
same back—four days out of your vacation time. Which will it
be this year?
Sound familiar?
For years my wife, Beverlee, and I drove ourselves into
the ground getting to our destination as quickly as we could so
we and the kids could start enjoying our vacation. One
year I even drove a motorhome all night through a snow storm
to get to where we were going. How foolish can you get?
Woodman said, "Good judgment comes from experience, and
experience . . . well, experience comes from poor judgment."
So finally we had enough experience to say brightly to each
other, "Hey, Honey, why don't we relax and make our travel
time part of our vacation?" We did, and every year
after that added
four days to our two-week vacation—and over the years zillions of days of
peace and enjoyment to our lives.
Some Learn It . . . Some Don't What we had
learned without realizing we had learned it is a principle
that has been known by thousands of thousands throughout the
history of humanity, "True joy comes from the journey, not
from reaching your destination,"—or what's a mountain for?
Experienced mountain climbers who have conquered the highest
peaks will almost universally tell you that it is not
standing on the summit looking out over hundreds of miles of
glorious mountains and valleys that gives them their
greatest joy, it is the climb itself: the challenges, the
struggles, the upward climb. That's why so many climb the
same mountain several times by different routes upward, for
the thrill and joy of the upward journey.
We're On a Journey
Mapped Out by God I was reading the record of
the apostle Paul's life in the Book of Acts one day and
jotting down notes to myself and I wrote this, "Paul was
living the adventure of God." When I read what I had
written, I thought, "Yes, he was, and all Christians are
living the adventure of God, and what a wonderful adventure
it would be if we only realized that every day God is
unfolding and revealing to us the plans He has for us. How
much more we would enjoy the journey." And I've been
enjoying it every day since then, and because I am many
things in life make a lot more sense. In fact, looking
back I can see specific places and things and people that
God has touched at some point in my life and then years
later in some kind of divine serendipity brought them back
into my life, almost always in a way that was favorable to
me or to them. But that's for another newsletter. I've no
doubt, however, that if you look back into your life, even
long before you were a Christian, you will find the same
touches of God and the serendipitous results. The Book of
Hebrews says this about the Old Testament saints, "These all
died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth." And the apostle Peter said that we are
"sojourners and pilgrims" upon this earth. You're on a
journey, child of God; a journey mapped out by God Himself,
a journey up the holy mountain of God.
Enjoy
your
journey!
Harold J. Chadwick |
