The Journey

As we grow older, one of the great truths about life we learn is that nothing stays the same. No matter how good or how bad things may be, they aren't going to stay that way - they will change. Your health will fail, your job will improve, your finances will tighten, your dog will die, you'll make new friends, you'll move to a new house, you'll go through a lot of changes both welcomed and not.

The reason is because life is a journey not a destination. In that sense, we do not find life or make a life, we are experiencing life, passing through this earthly existence. It is so important to realize this truth so that we don't get so comfortable in one season that we cannot adjust to the next. Or that we get so mired down with adversity we cannot see a way through to a better day.

You aren't going to stay young regardless of the trips to the gym or the beauty salon. Your kids aren't going to stay home despite how unlikely they seem to move out or how desperately you want them to stay. Your hair is going to turn gray or turn loose, your skin is going to wrinkle like a cheap suit and gravity is going to win.  Life moves on whether you're stepping out or being dragged, kicking and screaming.

Here's the deal, "people are destined to die once and after that to face the judgment" (Heb 9:27).  Our life here is not status qou, rather it is "a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (Js 4:14).  We are not earth dwellers, we are "foreigners and strangers on earth...longing for a better country - a heavenly one" (Heb 11:13-16).  We are just passing through.

So, rather than allow ourselves to get too bogged down or too attached, why not make the most of the opportunities afforded by God to enjoy, grow, love, serve, overcome and moves on to the next season until we are graciously allowed to return home, to our Father's house?

One day, our train, so to speak, will pull into life's terminal. But that is not an end to fear, it is a destination to embrace, a homecoming to enjoy and the end of the journey that brings us to the existence for which we were created: Heaven!

Until then, rather than drive down stakes or lament our stake in life, let us joyfully "press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Phil 3:14). Jus' Say'n.