I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with traveling. If there’s not much for me to do on the trip, I find myself wishing someone would have developed a transporter already so I could just beam from spot to spot instantly. I know my target destination, and I want to be there already. That’s why I travel with a laptop, iPod, books, anything to help me get my mind off the travel so I don’t focus on being “stuck,” especially in an airplane. (At least with driving there’s more to see, radio to play, and you can stop whenever you want to get out and stretch – especially important since I’m 6’4”.) On long trips on planes you find things to do to keep your mind off the lack of space to really stretch out the legs. On long trips by car I usually plan to have the time to stop whenever I feel like it, see sights, that sort of thing. Whatever it takes to break the monotony of travel. I would much rather instantly be there and skip the whole travel thing, but since we can’t do that yet, I manage.
What about living the Christian life? We know what our final destination is, and we know where we should be each day. Often we stop and ask ourselves how we’re doing. If you’re like me, it’s easy sometimes to be so focused on the destination that I forget that the trip isn’t as much about the destination as it is the journey to get there. Let me illustrate. A couple of years ago I drove with several folks from my church to New York on a mission trip. Pensacola, FL, to Matla, NY, is about 1400 miles, one way. 10 people in a church van pulling a trailer. Loads of fun. No, really. Well, loads of time sitting in a van with not much to do. Enough to make you go crazy if you’re not careful. Be fair. Think about the last time you drove on a trip that took 2 days hard driving. Remember? How do you make it that far without going crazy? I mean, on the road things begin to look the same mile after mile. One mile of pavement looks pretty much the same an any other mile. How do you acknowledge your progress? You establish goal points. It might be mile markers where some event happened to you on a previous trip or a city or exit that you like to take that has your favorite gas station or restaurant. It might be those all important rest areas for, you know, resting. Anyway, you approach the trip as a whole, but you break it down into smaller pieces so you can gauge how far you’ve gone and how far you have to go. That’s how you make it through a long trip.
The same is true with the Christian life. If you are so focused on the destination that you don’t have those intermediate win points to celebrate, you can find yourself feeling defeated or discouraged. And that’s the exact opposite of how our God of wonder desires us to live. The old saying goes that the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, and that’s true. Sometimes, though, I wish it continued to say that it begins with a single step … after step … after step … until you get there. We live in an age when everything is instant: microwaves to cook food faster, drive-thrus at restaurants, faster and faster internet, instant messaging – face it, our whole world in America is about getting it faster, bigger, better. If we apply that thinking to our Christian lives, though, we’ll find ourselves frustrated that we aren’t where we know we should be. And frustration can lead to discouragement, which can lead to defeat and surrender, an acceptance of where we are and a lack of desire to move forward. God never wants that life for us. He desires us to live in wonder and awe of Him, in victory and peace, full of hope. That’s why we’re encouraged to remember the things God has done for us and share them with others – so we see the victories we’ve had that fuel our passion and desire to keep moving forward, those victories that remind us of the greatness of God and drive our worship of Him.
Proverbs 3:18 (NCV) tells us that the way of the good (righteous) person is like the light of dawn, growing brighter and brighter until full daylight. If we see the full daylight at our destination (heaven with God), then our walk should constantly be moving towards full light. What our walk can’t do is go backward, towards more darkness, but move ever forward, little by little, until we reach the fullness of day. Think about the last time you watched the sun come up. It wasn’t like a cartoon, dark one second and full daylight the next, rather, it gradually got brighter, almost so slowly that you missed it unless you happened to close your eyes for a second to remember the previous moment, then open them again to see how much brighter the world was. It’s the gradual, continual movement forward that gets us to our final destination, and we must see the journey as a series of steps, not an instantaneous leap.
How do we keep going forward, then, when faced with a journey that seems to take so long? Proverbs 3 gives some more advice. Verse 25 encourages us to keep our focus on the things that are right, to look straight ahead at what is good, to stay on that path, always moving forward, and not to follow the rabbit trails and evil paths along the way that try to distract us (v.27). In other words, we keep our focus squarely on the One who is the embodiment of good, and we remember all the good that He has done. We remember that while there are times when we can’t seem to see the sky getting brighter, as long as we stay on the path that leads to Him we can’t help but experience brighter skies the farther we go. We have to help those around us, encouraging them as well in their journey, for the reality is that as God followers we are all headed in the same direction towards the same destination. We never travel alone. God is always with us, and so are all those who follow Him as we do. We have a responsibility to each other to encourage and support and even celebrate with each other as we move forward, step by step, towards that final destination, the fullness of daylight, the throne room of God. We have to keep taking steps forward.
So, don’t give up, don’t get discouraged if while you’re moving forward you aren’t where you think you should be in your Christian walk. Remember that you are on a long trip, and set up markers for yourself so you can gauge constant forward movement. Take the time to remember what God has done, reflect in wonder of Him, so you can see that the sky is indeed getting brighter, the mile markers are actually getting higher and higher in number, the destination closer and closer. Celebrate each and every victory along the way, being careful to always give thanks and praise to the One Who gives you the victories. And keep stepping forward, from step 1 to step 1,000,001, knowing that each step brings you closer home.
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