"Enjoy the journey!" - true or false?

I’ve done a fair bit of travelling lately. The most recent leg was an 18 hour trek from Newcastle in England via Amsterdam and Toronto to the small city of Owen Sound on the shores of Georgian Bay where we live.

How many times can you honestly say you enjoyed the journey? The best I can say is I was glad to have staggered across the finish line and collapsed into bed.

And yet people often tell us to enjoy the spiritual journey we are on, as opposed, for instance, to focussing on the destination we want to arrive at.

In all honesty, I don’t really get the advice to enjoy that journey any more than I would understand a suggestion I should revel in my 18 hour trek home from northern England.

The problem is that the Bible (and certainly its last book) presents us as people on a journey, on the way from spiritual Egypt, protected yet challenged in the wilderness and tribulation of this present life, en route to the Promised Land of the new Jerusalem.

While we are definitely on a journey, I’m not certain the Bible commands us to enjoy it. I definitely believe it tells us to endure it. But enjoy?

Maybe it would be better to look at it this way. We are to endure the journey, but what we are to enjoy is knowing Christ and the privilege of living for him and walking in the way of his cross.

Count it all joy, James says, when you encounter trials. Hmmm… well, that does sound a bit like enjoying the journey. But what actually gives me joy is the prospect of getting to the destination James sets out: that I may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

It’s not the trials that give us the joy. It’s not the journey that makes us content.

What keeps us in the journey is the fact that its trials are designed to make us dig deeper into God, and that is where we strike oil. I do not enjoy the trials, but I do enjoy the benefits of knowing the Lord more deeply. His presence invades my suffering, his interventions make the yoke easy, his song comes into my heart. And somehow the hassles and aggravations bother me less.

Let me pursue this from one more angle. Life is a mixture of journey and destination.

All along the journey, we are reaching destinations. For instance, Elaine and I are on a journey leaving the local pastorate to engage in international ministry to churches around the world. The journey, like most other things we have done over our lifetime, is a pioneering one. Some people and churches just don’t get it. There has been pain in the journey and lots of testing. But along the way, there have been massive encouragements -- destinations reached. Can I say I have enjoyed the journey? No, in fact most of the time I have found it very hard. But have I found the Lord over and over again in the midst of it? Yes I have, and for that I am thankful. And I know when we launch out next summer, we will have reached a significant destination along the journey, and will take great joy in it. More than that, God will be glorified in what he has done in us and for us.

Some folk are on a much harder journey than us. Read the two posts on this website a few weeks ago by our dear friend Jan Vickers, for one example.

The journey is tough. The destinations reached along the way give us strength. The ultimate goal is certain. God is faithful.

But most of all, find him along the way.

That’s where the joy is.

He's here

It is said of a well-known Christian lady that she would pray until she felt the Holy Spirit had come to her. And then everything was fine. She would simply say, “He’s here.”

Now I know that in truth the Holy Spirit, as God on earth, is in fact always here. He is never absent from the earth in which he represents both the Father and the Son who created it.

From that perspective, it seems a bit strange to invite the Holy Spirit into our services as if he is somehow waiting in the foyer trying to gain admission.

And yet…

I have found that in those many times where I find myself desperate, tired, stressed, anxious and fearful, there is one antidote. I go somewhere and cry out to the Holy Spirit until he comes to me.

This morning, I simply gave all the burdens I am carrying up to God, abandoning myself and all my situations to him. And as I cried out to God, he came.

When the Holy Spirit comes to you, or at least when you open the door of your heart and your spirit to him, it changes everything.

You receive strength and comfort and power. Your attitude changes from fear to faith, from desperation to satisfaction, from hopelessness to joy.

Today (as I write this) is a Sunday morning. I am speaking three times in two churches. I have people to meet and people to pray for. And there is one thing I know for certain: without him I am nothing. Yet with him I can do anything.

The power of the Holy Spirit takes us into the place where we can do whatever God has placed before us to do.

No matter what is in front of you today, with him you can do it. It may be to preach a sermon, it may be to teach in a classroom, it may be to build a house, it may be to look after your kids. It doesn’t really matter what it is, you need the Holy Spirit to do it.

Yes the Holy Spirit is here. But have you opened the door to him? He won’t break it down. You need to invite him in.

But when that happens, everything becomes possible.

Most of us spend far too much time trying to live out of our own strength. Why not try living out of his strength instead?

“Come, Holy Spirit” is an ancient prayer of God’s people. You can find it in medieval Latin as much as modern English.

That prayer is still valid today. Why don’t you try it and see what happens.

Mystery Explained: print and e-book available!

No book of the Bible is more misunderstood in our North American Christian world than Revelation. This is a tragedy, because its true meaning is not hard to discern. The key is to interpret it in light of the Old Testament, not the latest news reports from the Middle East. This book takes what has become a mystery to most of us, and explains it in language understandable to the average church member. I give an introduction and explanation of the main alternative interpretations, explain why I choose the one I believe is correct, and then take you on a tour of the text, hopefully explaining any questions you may have.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/160750108

Buy the Kindle edition, in Canada, in the UK, or in the US.

Buy the paperback, in Canada, in the UK, or in the US.

Coming home

I am writing this from Durham. There are Durhams in Canada, the United States and likely other countries, but there’s only one original, in the far north-eastern corner of England, just below a wall the Emperor Hadrian built to keep unwanted immigrants out.

Durham is notable for many things. It is one of the birthplaces of Christianity in this country, with an illustrious Christian history going back to the time of St Cuthbert in the seventh century, who is buried in the cathedral. The cathedral itself is almost a thousand years old and is one of the finest pieces of architecture in Britain, or anywhere in Europe for that matter. How they built it with nothing more than muscle power is beyond me. The castle is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Europe, and I lived in it myself for a year several eons ago.

And for me, Durham was the place where God encountered me, gave me a true understanding of what the church should be, and afforded me the privilege of leading a small but radical group of young people who planted a local congregation which did not look like any other church in town. It was the place where I made many lifelong friends, and most importantly, met my wife Elaine.

It was a place where I learned obedience, where I refused to compromise my faith no matter what the cost (and there was one), and the place where my heart was stirred to pursue the kingdom of God relentlessly.

For me, coming to Durham is like coming home. And this in spite of the fact I was born in Canada and lived there for only six years. Why is that?

I think the answer is this. Home for the Christian is often the place where God most radically encountered you. It’s the place where your life was set on course and where you developed convictions that have carried you through since. It’s way more than a sentimental liking for a place that has fond memories for you.

And for me, it is reinforced by the fact that God is still working in the church I originally started. In fact, it has grown beyond recognition both in its local expression and in the impact it has had in planting churches and in sending out people around the world.

Coming back this week to help encourage the latest church planted out from Durham takes me back to the same foundations so much of my life has been built on. And it’s a great joy.

Where is home for you? My wife Elaine occasionally makes the observation that some people are born and raised and live their whole lives in the very same place, and wonders what that would be like given our own different experience.

But for the Christian, home is very frequently that place on earth where God encountered and shaped us. In a deeper sense, this points us to the fact that in truth home is the place where we will live and dwell with him forever.

Peter tells us we are only sojourners on earth. We are “resident aliens,” just like the government document said I was when I was a Canadian living in Chicago attending seminary.

Our true home is not on this earth at all. The only reason why an earthly place feels like a spiritual home is that the same God who met us there is waiting for us at the end of our earthly journey.

Sometimes we feel that our whole life has been a journey moving ever farther away from home. In fact, our whole life is a journey in which we draw ever closer to home. And those places God has met us on the way become reminders of this.

It’s pointless to try to cling on to earthly securities and the home we have here. But along the way, it’s still comforting to know there are places on this earth that remind us of the great reward that is yet to come.

The real meaning of faith

“Faith is not belief without proof. It is trust without reservation.” These wise words came from my good friend Steve Hepden the other day, and boy did they hit me hard.

The problem with so much teaching on faith is that faith becomes a commodity, something we are seeking to possess. And we want a large quantity of it to protect ourselves from all the dangers of the world around us. If only I had faith for this or faith for that, I could get everything I want to make my life peaceful and happy.

What is wrong with this picture?

Well for one thing, Jesus said we only needed a tiny quantity of faith to accomplish great things. And the reason is this: it’s not about how much faith I have, it’s about how much faithfulness God has.

Once we tap into the faithfulness of God, our tiny sliver -- mustard seed, to use Jesus’ word -- surfs on the wave of God’s great faithfulness to accomplish everything his Word promises for us and through us.

The power of faith lies not in our words, our emotions, our thoughts, or even in our “positive confession.” The power of faith lies in the promise of God. That power lies outside ourselves. It is not something to be possessed. It is someone to be trusted. It is part of the living relationship we have with the Lord.

But this points us to a more fundamental truth. Faith is not a commodity I possess. Faith is a relationship I have with God because of what Jesus did for me.

The Greek word for faith at its root means personal trust. And that takes us back to the statement at the beginning. Faith is trust in God. That’s what it is and that’s all it is.

And in its purest form, it is trust without reservation. Faith is not something we get to protect ourselves. It is the willingness to risk everything for Christ’s sake, trusting him for the consequences.

Faith is the entering into a relationship of trust where God calls us again and again to jump off cliffs and risk our security, in the knowledge that he will look after us, no matter what happens.

God has been challenging me lately on whether my faith is actually trust without reservation. Am I following him conditionally or unconditionally?

What I’ve found out is that I don’t have the right to point out to the Lord how many steps of faith I’ve taken in the past when I was much younger, as if that exempted me from taking radical steps of faith in the present.

But one thing I know. The same God who kept me and provided for me and looked after me when I was twenty and when I was thirty and forty and fifty is still looking after me now that I am sixty-four. And he will continue to do so until the day he decides to take me home and into that place where earthly faith is no longer needed.

It may be hard to trust without reservation, but let me tell you it’s a whole lot better than trying to self-protect, manipulate and connive to provide yourself with what you want out of life. Let me give you a hint. It never works.

There’s a better way.

Trust him. He won’t let you down.