Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Is it really all about the journey? Really?

I have heard it time and time again, life is not about the destination, it’s about the journey. I know that is true, but sometimes you just want to arrive! Especially when the journey is rocky and scary and twisty and crazy! And for those of us who tend to be a bit on the perfectionistic side, the process of journeying can be excruciating! We want to get there already!

I named this blog journey of healing on purpose, mostly to remind myself and others that healing is in fact a journey. And the reality is that, we will never arrive at the destination until we are made whole in heaven. So what do we do?
The way I see it we have 2 options.

1. We can continue to be discontented and frustrated that we have yet to arrive at the point we wish to be. As women, we may desire things such as: our body to look like the supermodel on the magazine, our career to reach the level of the woman down the hall that we idolize, our spiritual life to be constantly fulfilling and thriving the way our neighbors seems to be, our writing to emulate Beth Moore, our family to be anything but dysfunctional, our children to act like they weren’t raised in a barn when we go out in public, etc, etc, etc. We tend to want so many things! And reality is that some of these wants are healthy, and some are not, but the problem is not setting goals for ourselves. After all, it is good and healthy to have something to strive for. The problem is when we set goals that are completely unreasonable, goals that are difficult to attain without some severe sacrifices of things that are important, and we begin to spend our life striving after something we were never meant to be or have. If we are not careful we will find ourselves striving day after day to reach a certain point, and we live in a constant state of discontent, not only making our own selves miserable, but adding stress to the lives of those around us.

2. We can choose to enjoy the journey. We can choose to trust that what the bible says is the truth, that his power is made perfect in our weaknesses and that he is not finished with us yet. We can choose to trust that God will make us into exactly what he wants us to be, not on our timeline, but on his.

Please notice I used the word “choose” in option number 2, because this is not always something that comes naturally! If you are like me you tend to run full speed ahead, never stopping to enjoy anything, eyes focused on whatever the prize seems to be at the time, and knocking anyone down who gets in the way! The problem for me is that my eyes aren’t focused on the right prize! Because if they were, I wouldn’t be knocking others down, I would be building them up. If my eyes were on the right prize, I would be faithful, realizing that sometimes stopping to slow down and learn a thing or two is exactly what I need to be doing. But all too often my eyes get focused on something completely different, and I trip and fall face first in the mud puddle pit of despair. I make the same mistakes….again…AGAIN!!! So I must stop and choose to learn what God has to teach me. I must choose to enjoy the journey, lest I miss out on all God has planned for me! I must choose to trust! He never ever intended for us to be miserable, but to find true joy and fulfillment and happiness in him. I am on my journey, I veer off here and there, and God has to reel me back in, but I am on my journey, and I’m going to soak me up wisdom along the way, even if it takes God throwing brick walls in front of my face every couple of weeks to slow me down!

0 comments:

Post a Comment