Enjoy the Journey

The Journey

I feel like so many of us want all that God has planned for us and want to go to the places He’s destined for us to go. But not many of us actually want to go on the journey to get there, or on the journey to be the people we need to be before we can take our first actual steps toward our destinations. On the journey we get dirty, we get broken down, we get pruned, and we get cultivated. New things are planted, and we have to be patient for the growth. The journey doesn’t always feel like a road trip with your best friends. Sometimes it feels like being lost in the wilderness all alone. But that’s not the case. The journey, for me, is more beautiful than the view when I finally get to the destination that God wants me at.

This whole journey I’ve been on the past couple of months has felt like walking on a treadmill. I feel like there’s no progress being made, but I know I’ve got miles built up. I can’t see myself getting any closer to my final destination, but I’ve got the mileage to prove that I’m closer than when I started. Our walks with God are like that, though. Sometimes we feel like we aren’t getting any closer to Him, to our purposes, to our identities, to the destination that He predestined for us. In reality, we’re moving closer to it than we think.

In times like this I have to remind myself constantly that I’m closer than where I started, I’m better off than where I began, and change is happening to me along the way. Even when we don’t see an immediate change in our lives or in our situations, we trust that God is moving and at work in our lives.

Imagine for a minute you’re on a road trip, long hours being cramped in a car, and the road seems like it goes on forever because all you’re doing is driving straight. If you’re from Texas like me, all you see is empty land on either side of you; you can go fifteen miles without the scenery changing even the slightest bit. That’s a little bit like what the journey with God is like.

Maybe nothing seems to be changing around you. Maybe you feel like you’re on a treadmill, and you aren’t getting anywhere. Or maybe you’re walking and growing tired because you don’t see the progress. But let me tell you, friend, you’re in a good place! Enjoy the journey; you will learn more along the way than you will when you finally get to your destination.

I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

—Philippians 3:14

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

—Hebrews 12:1