I have often said that is it not all about the destination but about the journey. Granted a destination is important without one there is no journey just aimless wandering; however to reach a destination with no regard to the journey is to loose so much of the experience. This weekend I hiked 16 miles of the laurel highlands trail. This principle of respect and anticipation for the journey was clearly evident. Our destination each day was a small campsite and eventually the car and home again. The journey was 16 miles of hiking through some of the most beautiful Pennsylvania wilderness.
It is so tempting when going out for a hike to push so hard for the destination that you loose sight of the beauty that surrounds you. This weekend was particularly beautiful. While the trees hadn’t changed as much as I though they would have there was still the subtle hint of color in the tops and the ever changing color of the forest floor as it was covered by the kaleidoscope of leaves that were blown from their high homes to their resting place beneath our feet.
These colors always seem to amaze me. I can see so clearly the hand of God in all His creative wonder as I gaze at the beauty of the ever changing canopy and forest floor. I was struck with awe at the fact that someone could see the vast spectrum of colors that so overwhelmed my senses and believe that it just happened. It would be like looking through the greatest of our art galleries and believing that the artist never existed, instead paint just randomly fell onto the canvases and created the beautiful colors and scenes that we attribute to these world famous artist. To suggest the absence of these great artists one would be considered foolish but to say that the colors of fall just happen one is considered wise. Forget all the scientific arguments of beginning and cause and look at the heart of fall, look at the colors and see the creative heart of God brilliantly calling to our hearts romancing us with the wonder of this season.
There were brilliant red maple leaves some still speckled with bright greens, and yellows so bright that you would think they fell from the sun its self.
As the sun rose one morning I sat at the base of a tree and just soaked it in. I was rendered speechless as I watched the first shimmering orange rays of the morning sun come through the tops of the trees adding a brilliance to the colors that no painter could ever hope to capture with his brush and pigments. Then there was the smell of fall carried to my nose by the cool fall air. As the dampness of the rain from the day before began to clear off the cool fall breeze brought the familiar and still rejuvenating smell of fall to my nose once again. It is hard to explain and easy to miss especially in a day when we manufacture so many smells. However if you spend some time out in the fall woods and allow the cool fall air to carry its smell to you, you will soon know what I am talking about and will never be able to forget it. I don’t know if it is the smell of the dry beautiful fall leaves or the clean coolness of the air its self, perhaps it is a mixture of both but it is a smell that I wait for all summer long and cherish once it arrives when the first leaves of fall begin to change.
Then there was the wild life. Birds and other animals that seemed to blend into the summer landscape seemed to jump out as the leaves began to turn. One gentleman brought a red spotted newt to us and I once again found my self speechless as I looked at its beautiful colors in comparison with the fall leaves and the green bed of moss that it was crawling across.
Finally there was the reliving of memories that comes from crossing paths that have been part of past journeys. This to is an important part of the journey. I have some amazing memories from the trial that I was hiking and it was so uplifting to my heart to allow God to remind me of the story that He has told in the past and to encourage me about the story He will continue to tell and new stories that He is working into this grand epic journey that He is telling.
All of these aspects of the journey would have been lost had I been too focused on the destination. But in regards to the destination it was wonderful to. We got to camp in the cool fall weather and enjoy time around the campfire listening and telling stories while eating good food that is made even better by the journey we had taken that day. Journey and destination both are integral parts to a bigger picture that when seen in its fullness has the ability to completely absorb you.
All of that gave me a greater appreciation for the story that God is telling, the epic journey that He has set us on and the grand destination that awaits us. He has set our hearts free to once again become what they were before the fall. We have been released into the Kingdom of God and all the power of God has been made available to us as we take on this journey into the heart of God, as we become disciples/apprentices of Jesus. So many Christians today take on the same philosophy about life as many of my fellow hikers took about our journey. The hikers pushed hard to reach the destination and forgot completely about the journey that was to be had. They missed the colors and the smells and the memories and in doing so missed so much of the experience.
Christians today look forward to heaven so much that they forget that there is life and life abundant offered to us now. Jesus doesn’t say that when we get to heaven we become sons and daughters of the King, he says that we have become joint heirs in the “Kingdom of the heavens” now. We are called to embrace our journey and our roles as disciples/apprentices of Jesus in the way of restoration; restoration of life and or souls. We live lives not captive to sin, although that does happen, but captive to a wrong focus. We have been given roles to play now, roles that will call us to be heroes and heroines in this great battle that is unfolding between the “Kingdom of the heavens” and the kingdom of this world.
This is our journey our destiny, to fight, to learn, to live, to lead, and to follow, we can’t forget it. Here again destination is important. The hope of a battle ended and hearts completely restored in their relationship to their creator and to each other is something that strengthens our hearts for the journey. Without this destination we would be wandering through life lost and looking for anything to hope for. With this destination we become focused and strengthened to fight what ever the Evil One throws at us. However when we look only to the destination we become useless. We don t see that God is continually working to restore to us our former glory and creating within us a new heart from which we can live life in the present. We have been set free to live our eternal lives now, that eternal life that Christ offers to us, life to the fullest.
Eternal life does not start at the gates of heaven as we pass through death into eternal life it starts with the freeing of our hearts from captivity and the restoration of our souls to an eternal journey with our Creator. We have an eternal journey and a heavenly destination and when we realize who we are and who God is in light of this journey and destination we are freed to live in the bigger story that He is telling, to be captivated by the story, immersed so fully in it that we loose our selves and in that loosing we find who we were truly created to be, we find it along the journey.
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