It is nice to know where you’re going and helpful to know how to get there. Modern technology can’t help with your choice of destination. You still have to choose for yourself where you’d like to end up, but it can help you get there once your made a decision.
Global positioning systems and programs like Google Maps can give us accurate and useful directions when we need them. Sometimes they lead us astray, as well. If the municipal powers-that-be change or close roads, or if the information is generally incorrect, not even the best mapping or positioning device can help. When those technologies fail, we’re on our own; it’s up to us to figure out how to arrive at our chosen destination.
In Christian and other faith circles we often talk about taking a path or heading in the right direction. We talk about our journey or our pilgrimage as if our life has some final destination, some place we have to be in order for our lives to be complete.
I’d like to challenge that notion for a moment. I’d like to question whether or not we really are on a journey, and whether or not we need some kind of Godly positioning system in order to get there. Actually, I’d like to suggest that we are already where we are supposed to be but don’t know it. I don’t think life is a journey as much as it is an awakening to reality.
Think about it for a moment. What we need for our faith life is already within us. We are God created beings that have been created in our maker’s image. Thus we are made holy and good. We have been equipped with reason and creativity. We have built into us the capacity to love without limits. In other words, we are, from the moment of birth, a total and complete package, a unique expression of God’s genius ready to do what we are meant to do.
Sure, it takes a little formation. It takes growing and learning and making mistakes to figure out who and what we are. But we never have to go anywhere. Being fully, complete and worthy humans doesn’t require us to climb mountains or cross great divides or sail impossible seas. It requires study, observation, training, participation and persistence, not a great pilgrimage. You can think of life as a journey, I suppose, but I think that misleads us, if you’ll pardon the pun.
We are at home with God by who we are and through our relationship with Him. While worshipping with others enhances our faith, we can always worship God alone wherever we are. We can see God in great scenic vistas far from home, but He is equally visible in the love of a friend. Only when we realize that God is never further than a heartbeat away will we truly be home at last.
Global positioning systems and programs like Google Maps can give us accurate and useful directions when we need them. Sometimes they lead us astray, as well. If the municipal powers-that-be change or close roads, or if the information is generally incorrect, not even the best mapping or positioning device can help. When those technologies fail, we’re on our own; it’s up to us to figure out how to arrive at our chosen destination.
In Christian and other faith circles we often talk about taking a path or heading in the right direction. We talk about our journey or our pilgrimage as if our life has some final destination, some place we have to be in order for our lives to be complete.
I’d like to challenge that notion for a moment. I’d like to question whether or not we really are on a journey, and whether or not we need some kind of Godly positioning system in order to get there. Actually, I’d like to suggest that we are already where we are supposed to be but don’t know it. I don’t think life is a journey as much as it is an awakening to reality.
Think about it for a moment. What we need for our faith life is already within us. We are God created beings that have been created in our maker’s image. Thus we are made holy and good. We have been equipped with reason and creativity. We have built into us the capacity to love without limits. In other words, we are, from the moment of birth, a total and complete package, a unique expression of God’s genius ready to do what we are meant to do.
Sure, it takes a little formation. It takes growing and learning and making mistakes to figure out who and what we are. But we never have to go anywhere. Being fully, complete and worthy humans doesn’t require us to climb mountains or cross great divides or sail impossible seas. It requires study, observation, training, participation and persistence, not a great pilgrimage. You can think of life as a journey, I suppose, but I think that misleads us, if you’ll pardon the pun.
We are at home with God by who we are and through our relationship with Him. While worshipping with others enhances our faith, we can always worship God alone wherever we are. We can see God in great scenic vistas far from home, but He is equally visible in the love of a friend. Only when we realize that God is never further than a heartbeat away will we truly be home at last.
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