Thursday, November 7, 2019

Faith - a journey


It’s easy to talk about faith and a lot harder to embrace it. We want to give ourselves over to God, but we’d like to be able to know the destination details in advance. We’d love it if God would simply give us the floor plan and schedule for where our lives will end up — hence the oft-cited obsession with “finding God’s will for my life” as though there were some magic bullet or formula to tell us precisely how our lives will play out. We’d also like to have the option of getting off a floor or two early just in case things get to be too uncomfortable or if circumstances warrant. Buttons like work, friendships, college, and future stand lit up before us, easy for us to punch as an excuse to keep us from focusing on the destiny to which God is calling us.

The truth is that God’s will for us isn’t bound up in the final destination, be it heaven, a career choice or even a particular vocation. God’s will is for us to be in relationship with God, to trust God with everything in our lives and to live each day in God’s presence. When it comes to God, the journey really is the destination.

Faithfulness isn’t about “what’s in it for me” in the future, but rather what’s possible for God and me to accomplish together in the present, realizing that everything we do for God is part of God’s larger purpose for the world.

You want to learn faith? Skip the buttons and step aboard.