It really is a Journey...

I've always wanted to do great things for God. As I look back on some of the great things that I've attempted I have to admit that they were usually great things for me, done in God's name. It's interesting how we lose focus, we miss the true intentions and motivations of our own heart.

That's why I'm glad that this life of following Jesus is a journey. Times of ease and times of difficulty. Times to learn new things and times to reflect on the things you thought you had already learned. And at some point you begin to realize that anyone who tells you that you take quantum spiritual leaps is probably selling you something. The journey isn't flashy. (Jesus used "taking up your cross" as a metaphor.) But it's a journey of joy. It's the journey I was created for. And it progresses one small step at a time. "He must become greater, I must become less", said that camel skin wearing, locust eating prophet. That's a life long process, one that happens a little at a time. My friend Matt Auten wrote a song a long time ago that said something like this -

"What the wind cannot lift it will wear away
What they waves can't break they will shape a new way.
All I am and all I will be are buried in who You will be to me.
Rather than lose me to my worthless loves You gain me grain by grain."

Grain by grain. A journey. Small steps. Reminds me of a quote that I love.

"To give my life for Christ appears glorious, to pour myself out for others. . . to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom - I'll do it. I'm ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory. We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking $l,000 bill and laying it on the table - 'Here's my life, Lord. I'm giving it all'. But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $l,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid's troubles instead of saying, 'Get lost'. Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn't glorious. It's done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it's harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul." (Fred Craddock)

It really is a journey. And I wouldn't have it any other way.