Vision Quest 2017 did not go as planned. I got to the woods where a pastor friend was going to meet me and pick up my vehicle. He had a previous engagement that had run later than expected, and since the sun was starting to set I wanted to get moving. I put my keys under the drivers seat, texted him the door code to get into my vehicle, and headed into the woods. I found a spot, set up my borrowed camping hammock, and started to settle in for the night, when panic over my vehicle began to set in. I hadn't heard from my friend yet, and so I decided I would wait for him by the car. I zipped up the bug net, took my headlamp and flashlight, made a mental note of where I was in the woods, and went to wait by the car.
I waited for about 15 minutes, and when he go there, just after 9 pm, the light was really fading from the sky. We arranged for the pickup time the next day, and I headed back to my campsite. Twenty minutes later I called him and told him I needed him to come and get me because I couldn't find my hammock. It gets really dark in the woods, and I had my cheap headlamp. I headed back to the trail, and as I started to head back to the parking lot, my first thought was "Well this is shot", but immediately I realized that this was all part of the quest. Somehow God was going to speak.
He picked me up, and we went back to his house and talked for about an hour. I went home, got up at 5:15 am, and was back in the woods at 6:00. I found my hammock very quickly in the daylight, and then began hiking. God spoke, using the events of the previous night, and helped give me focus as I move forward. It didn't go as planned and that's ok. God used the whole experience, especially the parts that didn't go as planned, to reveal things to me about the identity He has for me.
After getting back, I went to a local coffee shop and began to process some things. I have a journal that I am tracking through this process of healing/initiation/identity claiming, and I began by reviewing my notes from Vision Quest 2016. As I did I picked up on a theme that has been repeated over the past year, and as I sat there with my 3x5 cards and my journal I began to piece things together. Over the past year a concept has continued to pop up, and it is the idea of the journey.
Life is a journey, and the journey is the point. Too often we focus on the destination, making that the goal. We want to get there, but when we do it isn't all that we thought it would be, it doesn't satisfy us like we think it will, and that's because it isn't about the destination, but the journey to get there. I was walking my dog that evening and when I'm alone I talk to myself, it helps me think. As I talked through the idea of the journey I thought of a memory from my childhood that captures the reality that it's about the journey.
In elementary school computer class I was introduced to one of the best computer games ever, The Oregon Trail. You start in St. Louis, form your wagon party, buy supplies, then hit the trail heading west. Along the way you trade, hunt, collect wild edibles, cross rivers, and try not catch a disease or get attacked by animals. Do you know when the game ends? There are two scenarios, you either die of dysentery, a bear mauling, or drowning in a river, or you make it to Oregon. The game doesn't continue because the point isn't the destination but the journey there. It's called The Oregon Trail, not Oregon.
Where we are going is important, I'm not saying that it isn't; we need a destination otherwise we are just aimlessly wandering. Proverbs 29.18a says, "Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained". The destination matters, we have to know where we are trying to get, otherwise we end up no where.
I've found that I've lived my life to this point in one of two extremes. I've either been so focused on the destination that I've sacrificed the joy of the moments getting there and wound up unfulfilled when I've reached the goal, or I've set out with no real plan and just hopped I'd figure out something along the way and everything would just fall into place. One way misses out on the process, and the other is chaotic randomness that goes no where.
We have to have a vision, a destination we are heading towards, but we cannot make the destination the full focus. The destination was never meant to be the point. It's the reward at the end of the process, but in our culture of instant gratification we don't like process, and because of this, the destination never satisfies us, and when we reach one, we quickly set out for another one, hoping it will make us happy. It never will. The other option is the millennial approach, of "I'll figure it out later, I'll worry about it when the time comes." This approach has no plan, no direction, and just ends up wasting time because it aims at nothing but the moment.
The point of a journey is to get somewhere, but the somewhere is just a small part of the journey. Life isn't about the destinations, but about the journeys that get us to them. We have to be going somewhere, the destination is the goal that keeps us focused during the trials of the journey, but we cannot focus on the somewhere at the expense of the process.
I don't want to spend my life longing for someday when I arrive and everything falls into place, I've done that, and it's miserable. You get discouraged that you aren't where you want to be, and you just hope something happens to fix it. I don't want to live with no vision and just hope everything works out in the end, I'm not wired to function like that. But I don't want to wait to live for when the ideal arrives, because simply waiting for it makes no progress towards it.
You only get to Oregon by leaving St. Louis. You only make it to Oregon if you're willing to cross the rivers, climb the mountains, and face the dangers of the trail. But you only appreciate Oregon if you've endured the hardships of the trail to get there, and you're only prepared to make a new life in Oregon by surviving the trials of the trail.
I've spent too much time wanting the journey to be over, and thinking life will be perfect when everything falls into place. I haven't wanted to embrace the journey, and so I've gotten no where. When I have tried to venture forth it's been with no plan or direction, and so I've circled around and ended up right where I started, getting even more frustrated and not wanted to set out again. There is a destination we are meant to arrive at, but it is only accessible if we undertake the journey to get there. We will only appreciate the destination if we embrace the journey.
This is the model that Jesus set for us. He came ultimately to be the atoning sacrifice who died and rose again; that was the destination. Jesus was focused on it, everything He did moved Him closer to it, but Jesus never sacrificed the moment to get there. His journey to the cross modeled obedience, service, and unconditional love. In the garden as He prepared for His arrest He prayed, "I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do" (John 17.4). He was always moving towards the cross, but He was fully immersed in the moment, embracing the journey.
That is how I want to live, intentionally moving towards the destination with focus and purpose, but not sacrificing the moment at the expense of the goal. I want to embrace the journey so that I can appreciate the destination when I finally arrive. That is how life is meant to be lived.
TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!
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