Thankful for the Journey

Teleportation. If I could have any superpower, that’s what it would be.  Being a history-lover, I used to say time travel, but fifteen years of living twelve hours away from first family and then friends has solidly changed my answer.

Physical distance is just so hard, partly because so much is required to overcome it--time, money, health, transportation. And when those things are lacking, it means missing birthdays, funerals, weddings, children being born and growing up, in-person conversations, and hugs. Even when time and money are available, they are necessarily spent in the process of traveling from one point to another. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just snap our fingers and be 600 miles away—or rather, 600 miles near? Think of all we could gain.

But I wonder, too, what we would lose. If teleportation was among our abilities, there would be no more full-day-long car rides, no commutes, no waiting in airports. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? But that also means there would be no playing road games, no daydreaming as the clouds roll by, no watching the scenery gradually change from flatlands to rolling hills to mountains, no time to sit and be alone with your thoughts—or a good book—for hours on end. 

Travel has a way of slowing us down, even as we’re speeding down the highway or soaring through the air. The craziness of life gets put on hold for thirty minutes or thirteen hours, and we have a chance to breathe, to reflect, to ponder. If there was no need to travel, everything would be more nonstop than it already is. There would be no pause, no perspective, no journey. And I daresay we wouldn’t be as appreciative of what’s at the end of the road—whether it be family, friends, or favorite places—if it didn’t cost us something to get to them.

Life without travel might sound nice (by travel, I mean the necessary movement to get from one place to another, not the process of exploring the world), but life without journey certainly would not be.

On a much deeper level, the same could be said for our spiritual lives. If you’re like me, the older you get, the more you wish we could just skip the expense of the time and discipline and cost that goes into the process of our sanctification, i.e. of God’s making us more like Jesus. Sometimes it seems it would be wonderful if we could just snap our fingers and be in our perfected state, like we will be when we leave this earth and enter the tangible presence of Jesus.

But just as with teleportation, if this were possible we would lose so much. There would be no more leaning on Jesus for daily strength to fight our besetting sin, no more sense of victory when by God’s grace we overcome the temptations of this world, no more watching the scenery of our personal, spiritual landscape change from mounds of clay to a beautifully formed vessel, no more urgent need to plead daily with God in prayer.

As physical journeys, whether great or small, give us a deeper perspective on the value of relationships and time, our spiritual journey gives us a deeper perspective on the value of the most important relationship we’ll ever have—that with the living God—and the timing that is always perfect—His.

So next time I leave work so mentally exhausted that I don’t want to go through the relatively short commute home or the next time I have to drive over 600 miles just to see dear friends, I’ll try not to wish I could teleport and be done with it. Instead, I’ll try to be thankful for the journey with all of the blessings it brings. And I’ll be reminded to be thankful for the more meaningful journey that I am on with Christ Jesus, for, although it can be tiring and uncomfortable at times, it will all be worth it in the end, and I will love Him all the more for the journey He so tenderly leads me through. 

Are you on a journey with Him? And if you are, have you thanked Him lately?