What if it’s the Journey? Better
Letters I’ve been writing to myself.
I grew up surrounded by engineers. One of our main childhood books that I remember was that massive The Way Things Work book. Many of the “tell me a story of when you were little” had something to do about engines, or electrical rewiring shenanigans. We were constantly inventing things as kids - building tree-forts, attaching wagons to Big Wheel bikes, testing and pushing the limits of nature and physics. While I could never quite wrap my head around the math and science end of things, my brain consistently moves towards a hands on experience of understanding how things work. I still don’t understand sound waves, and my dad is an audio engineer and I’ve found myself saying a lot “I don’t know all the things”. But, my dad, he knows all the things. I’ve focused my energy on people, relationships, psychology and religious studies. It’s funny though, I still come back to the childhood fascination of “But how does it work?” and applied it to faith and following Jesus. I don’t want to just know it on paper, I want people to practically experience it and understand how it might by fully realized in their lives if they choose to say yes to following Jesus.
What if the way it works is more about a journey than a destination? The underlying theme throughout this book is the idea of the journey over the destination, and the process of becoming over the end result. In a world of self help books and instant gratification, what if the slow way is the better way? What if success is more about who you are becoming along the way than accomplishing something noteworthy? My hope is that along the journey of this book you might contemplate some of the following questions - What does it look like to not have to please other people? To be free to journey towards Jesus without having to fit some mold? What makes being Christian deeper than a title and an idealistic way of living? What does it look like to simply follow Jesus instead of constantly worrying if we are doing it right?
Why write a book? Why go through the work and the process? I think the biggest question I kept asking myself as I considered that question was, is this something that is just for me, or is this something that could be useful and encouraging to others? This book found its beginnings in unpublished blog posts, typed up at all hours of the night in an attempt to merge life experiences and spiritual truths and navigate a way forward. Certain life experiences and conversations wove their way into my spiritual journey in a new way. Is this just for me, or is is something that is helpful for an audience of readers? The answer came as I started to put things into written words, and as I continued to have conversations with others. These thoughts, ideas, questions, pivotal moments in my life just kept finding their way out and into conversations and seemed to be applicable and helpful not only to myself but also to others.
I discovered this quote late in the process of this book, but I thought it summarized a lot of what I hope to say.
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” Paul Coelho
How we grow more or less depends on how we hear things and how we internalize what we hear. What I would love for those who read this book to listen to what they hear and to pay attention to how they hear it. Consider who is the Jesus that you are following or considering following? And what journey has he invited you into?
I’ll often mention Young Life in my writing. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Young Life is an international Christian organization that serves as a relational outreach to adolescents. You can find out more at www.younglife.org.
Be available to the journey of this book. Sit with it, question it, read it alone or read it with others. God is in the process of growing all of us. I invite you into this journey and into this conversation. The way I write is conversational, and is structured like a bunch of different ideas that connect and relate to each other and often look at the same core ideas from a different perspective. I hope that it doesn’t detract from the message but rather draws you in and helps you see each idea from a few different angles. The first half of the book lays the foundations and introduces a few core ideas and the second half builds on those and digs a little deeper. It’s my perspective that each chapter in this book progressively gets better. So, if you don’t like a chapter keep reading.
These are the sermons I’ve been preaching to myself over the last few years, and I hope that they speak truth to you as you journey as well.