Trusting in the Journey

As I continue steeped in grief of the loss of my cousin, my friend, Barnes says in WHEN GOD INTERRUPTS, he talks of the long journey with God being really important. We have to learn how to trust God and the journey is hard. We find ourselves twenty miles south of where we thought we should be. We run out of resources. We aren’t even sure we are going in the right direction. He talks of how we have to receive God’s daily manna. So hard. The challenge is to learn how to follow.

Jesus cautioned his disciples that abandonment awaits them if they choose to follow him. ” Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” He keeps pushing us toward a promise we cannot yet see. In the words of Margaret Farley, “The ultimate meaning…of the promise I make today can be clear only at the end of my life; and the meaning of my life at its end will be different because I made this promise today.” We won’t know until the end what entering the stream today means. Along the way Jesus will invite us to drop the things we are carrying that are heavy but deeply cherished.

Jesus is quite clear–the way to salvation lies ahead. Each day on the journey, the disciple of Jesus has to make a choice about continuing. Martin Luther claimed he had to be born again every day. Each day he had to choose to embrace Jesus. Each day he had to renew his commitment to follow Jesus to places that he would rather not go. (When God Interrupts by M Craig Barnes)

I choose to follow Jesus no matter how hard it is; no matter how lonely it is. He promises that it will all be worth it. I am grateful that he leadith me.