 | | | |
    the best cliche I know
mike howerton
I love a good road trip. There is just something about driving saddle-sore on a motorcycle across America, stopping to fuel up with burnt gas-station coffee and sunflower seeds. Something about hitch-hiking across Britain with a backpack, a map, and a hunger for adventure. Something about catching midnight trains in Europe, and waking up in distant lands. For as long as I can remember, I've loved heading out on new roads, having as a destination someplace cool, but enjoying the process of travel and the people I'm traveling with almost as much as the destination I'm traveling to. Obviously there is a spiritual connection here. The journey that we are on is a spiritual journey.
And it is healthy for us to admit it: the concept of Faith as a journey is cliche.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a majority of those who use the clich still miss the essential truth that the phrase affords. Faith isnt a happy hop to heaven. It isn't checking a box on a card. It isn't praying a sinner's prayer. Those steps might be important, but they are only steps in a long line of steps along the unpredictable, beautiful, exhilarating, exhausting, wonderful, wild and personal journey of faith. The reality is that God is much bigger, infinitely bigger in fact, than we give Him credit for, working long before we ever think to thank Him. So regardless of whether you define yourself as a believer or not, you are on a spiritual journey.
We all are.
If you've ever taken a travel jaunt, let's say, across the breadth of Europe, then you instantly see the ways in which similarities exist in this metaphor. There are times in any journey that you leap forward carried by the breeze under the bright sun, watching incredible countryside disappear outside of your train window. There are times that the progress seems much less evident times where you are stuck in an underground station, waiting for your connecting train times when you know the progress will come sooner or later, but in the meantime you live frustrated, distracted, sitting on a plastic seat anxiously listening for the next train and hoping it's yours. In any epic journey, there are times where you don't speak the language, where the culture, communication and connection become difficult. Spiritually, I've lived in each of these places, from time to time. There are times when I've been amazed at the distances that I'm privileged to cover in terms of knowing God, and living in communion with Him. Other times I've been frustrated with my distinct and noticeable lack of progress sitting in a sort of spiritual plastic chair, distracted with impatience and my own disposition towards selfishness. At times I've noticed that I'm having trouble connecting with God, connecting with others thinking that somebody is speaking a different language and that it was probably me, yet longing to connect on a deep level. Faith isn't linear: an ever ascending bar-graph from frustration and disappointment toward progress and potential. In student ministry, that is the most obvious reality that we can ever make peace with. Like any real journey, exciting times co-exist with difficult times. Like any real journey, it's always nice to know roughly where you are, and where you are headed.
The more I think about this cliche, the more I'm certain it is a still-valid metaphor.
It was reinforced to me recently at a conference engaging the emerging generation, where it was a pseudo-theme. The attendees were quick, youngish, energetic, uber-hip. Many answers were batted about with intellectual dexterity. I recognized that I don't have many answers. I simply have a story, the story of my journey. Here it is: the more I began to seek God, the more I realized He was seeking me. I narrated this in Miles to CROSS; a book written, for the most part, on the road, and the book has become a metaphor for my journey toward knowing God. As I put the project together, I had this naive notion that something miraculous would happen, that I would suddenly know God in an instantly tangible way, that I would hear His voice audibly and casually, that we would sip lattes together. Yeah, it didn't happen. But what did happen is that I was again made aware of this reality: I AM on a journey with God, and it is a journey of knowing God. God is available to be known. God is available to be loved. What puts even more wind in the sails is the reality that God knows you. God loves you. That is primary. He is in the business of loving you, and business is good. That is the truth, regardless of how you respond to it.
And that is the journey you are on, regardless of how you feel about the clice.
I'm a young dad, and I love my family as an expression of my love for God. God loves me through them every day of my life. Last week, as I was pulling my car out to head off to work, my family was sitting on the porch seeing me off. My two year old son was playing with a snail, contemplating whether or not it would make a good breakfast. My wife, as always, was beautiful, smiling her goodbye to me. But my four year old daughter was shouting something to me, very energetically, standing barefoot on her tiptoes, and straining as she called to me. So I backed the car up and rolled down the window to hear her voice. Don't forget! She shouted. Don't forget, OK? Don't forget I LOVE YOU! I thought, as my heart broke with solemn joy, how could I ever forget my daughter's love?
But you see, those are God's words to me, and to you. And unfortunately, we seem to forget God's love with disturbing regularity, especially when we aren't traveling as fast and as far along the road of life and ministry as we tell ourselves we ought to be.
God longs to walk with you on this journey, to be with you in times of your progress, in times of your stuck-ness, and in times of your confusion. But the point is that He wants to walk WITH you every step of the way. That is the relationship your heart deeply longs for: to know and be known, to love and be loved. That is the relationship that God provides. Isn't it good to know that you are on a journey, despite the cliche?
From one brother in the trenches to another, I pray you'll allow God access to your heart today. My prayer is that you would know his love, and experience the joy that God provides along your unique path with Him. My prayer is that you would live today with His love ringing in your ears,Don't forget! Don't forget, Ok? Don't forget I LOVE you!
http://www.simplyyouthministry.com/community-articles-from-the-field.html
mike howerton
I love a good road trip. There is just something about driving saddle-sore on a motorcycle across America, stopping to fuel up with burnt gas-station coffee and sunflower seeds. Something about hitch-hiking across Britain with a backpack, a map, and a hunger for adventure. Something about catching midnight trains in Europe, and waking up in distant lands. For as long as I can remember, I've loved heading out on new roads, having as a destination someplace cool, but enjoying the process of travel and the people I'm traveling with almost as much as the destination I'm traveling to. Obviously there is a spiritual connection here. The journey that we are on is a spiritual journey.
And it is healthy for us to admit it: the concept of Faith as a journey is cliche.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a majority of those who use the clich still miss the essential truth that the phrase affords. Faith isnt a happy hop to heaven. It isn't checking a box on a card. It isn't praying a sinner's prayer. Those steps might be important, but they are only steps in a long line of steps along the unpredictable, beautiful, exhilarating, exhausting, wonderful, wild and personal journey of faith. The reality is that God is much bigger, infinitely bigger in fact, than we give Him credit for, working long before we ever think to thank Him. So regardless of whether you define yourself as a believer or not, you are on a spiritual journey.
We all are.
If you've ever taken a travel jaunt, let's say, across the breadth of Europe, then you instantly see the ways in which similarities exist in this metaphor. There are times in any journey that you leap forward carried by the breeze under the bright sun, watching incredible countryside disappear outside of your train window. There are times that the progress seems much less evident times where you are stuck in an underground station, waiting for your connecting train times when you know the progress will come sooner or later, but in the meantime you live frustrated, distracted, sitting on a plastic seat anxiously listening for the next train and hoping it's yours. In any epic journey, there are times where you don't speak the language, where the culture, communication and connection become difficult. Spiritually, I've lived in each of these places, from time to time. There are times when I've been amazed at the distances that I'm privileged to cover in terms of knowing God, and living in communion with Him. Other times I've been frustrated with my distinct and noticeable lack of progress sitting in a sort of spiritual plastic chair, distracted with impatience and my own disposition towards selfishness. At times I've noticed that I'm having trouble connecting with God, connecting with others thinking that somebody is speaking a different language and that it was probably me, yet longing to connect on a deep level. Faith isn't linear: an ever ascending bar-graph from frustration and disappointment toward progress and potential. In student ministry, that is the most obvious reality that we can ever make peace with. Like any real journey, exciting times co-exist with difficult times. Like any real journey, it's always nice to know roughly where you are, and where you are headed.
The more I think about this cliche, the more I'm certain it is a still-valid metaphor.
It was reinforced to me recently at a conference engaging the emerging generation, where it was a pseudo-theme. The attendees were quick, youngish, energetic, uber-hip. Many answers were batted about with intellectual dexterity. I recognized that I don't have many answers. I simply have a story, the story of my journey. Here it is: the more I began to seek God, the more I realized He was seeking me. I narrated this in Miles to CROSS; a book written, for the most part, on the road, and the book has become a metaphor for my journey toward knowing God. As I put the project together, I had this naive notion that something miraculous would happen, that I would suddenly know God in an instantly tangible way, that I would hear His voice audibly and casually, that we would sip lattes together. Yeah, it didn't happen. But what did happen is that I was again made aware of this reality: I AM on a journey with God, and it is a journey of knowing God. God is available to be known. God is available to be loved. What puts even more wind in the sails is the reality that God knows you. God loves you. That is primary. He is in the business of loving you, and business is good. That is the truth, regardless of how you respond to it.
And that is the journey you are on, regardless of how you feel about the clice.
I'm a young dad, and I love my family as an expression of my love for God. God loves me through them every day of my life. Last week, as I was pulling my car out to head off to work, my family was sitting on the porch seeing me off. My two year old son was playing with a snail, contemplating whether or not it would make a good breakfast. My wife, as always, was beautiful, smiling her goodbye to me. But my four year old daughter was shouting something to me, very energetically, standing barefoot on her tiptoes, and straining as she called to me. So I backed the car up and rolled down the window to hear her voice. Don't forget! She shouted. Don't forget, OK? Don't forget I LOVE YOU! I thought, as my heart broke with solemn joy, how could I ever forget my daughter's love?
But you see, those are God's words to me, and to you. And unfortunately, we seem to forget God's love with disturbing regularity, especially when we aren't traveling as fast and as far along the road of life and ministry as we tell ourselves we ought to be.
God longs to walk with you on this journey, to be with you in times of your progress, in times of your stuck-ness, and in times of your confusion. But the point is that He wants to walk WITH you every step of the way. That is the relationship your heart deeply longs for: to know and be known, to love and be loved. That is the relationship that God provides. Isn't it good to know that you are on a journey, despite the cliche?
From one brother in the trenches to another, I pray you'll allow God access to your heart today. My prayer is that you would know his love, and experience the joy that God provides along your unique path with Him. My prayer is that you would live today with His love ringing in your ears,Don't forget! Don't forget, Ok? Don't forget I LOVE you! |
|
|
|
