Come and join our pilgrimage, our spiritual journey to become the kind of people the original designer had in mind. The last blog we started this adventure with the Magi and the word STAR, to help remember the Studied, Traveled, Adored, Redirected, STAR, experience of the Magi. So here is the next installment.
I chose the second word to be T Traveled, because after the Magi discovered the phenomena in the sky, they Traveled to further discover what this was all about. So often we get stuck at one place and never quite move beyond where we are. New Year's resolutions to lose weight for instance often require that we travel to the gym, and that seems a bigger obstacle than we first realized. So we stay stuck.
This adventure was different because the Magi were willing to travel. They arranged for a journey to find the King of the Jews who was to be born according to the great star/light in the sky. They went looking for the baby. It meant they left behind the familiar and went looking for the new discovery. We ought to be so inclined as we encounter Jesus, we ought to leave behind the past and the ways our faith didn't work, and find a new relationship and encounter with Jesus.
Some travel might not be too far. It's getting out of bed on a Sunday morning and going to church. I know that this is harder and harder to do for more people. Attendance at worship services continues to decline, people come less often per month and still feel like they go all the time. Some of this may be our fault for not making the services and encounters with God that Passionate and exciting. Pray for us as we move into new ways to worship so that it will be Passionate and encouraging and uplifting and help you make a connection to the Creator.
Some travel might include a missions trip somewhere to make a difference for someone else. Go on a Volunteers in Mission trip to rehab broken down houses, or hurricane restorations. Or go dig a well, or teach people how to do better with nutrition or education. There are thousands of opportunities for you to take a week of you time and invest it in some worthwhile project. It will be life changing. I've been to Africa University in Zimbabwe to help build faculty housing. I've been to Rochester NY to rehab run down houses with our youth group. I've been to Red Bird Mission to bring water into to homes that did not have it. I've been to Denver CO to refurbish a run down apartment complex that was being renovated to be a second chance for single moms. I've been to our camps to put in new screens in the windows, paint walls, etc. You can travel somewhere and make a difference to others and ultimately for you.
Some travel may not be external but internal. You may have to figure out a way not to react to somethings people say, because you are thinking more what would Jesus say in response. Some travel may be to find a different response to people who are nasty at work. Maybe there is something going on in their lives that needs fixing, and until it is, they will always be nasty. Maybe it's traveling across the hall, or down to the coffee pot and staying there for a time to see what you might do to make a difference in some one else's life. Caring goes a long way.
Some travel may be interior as you explore what is the most meaningful thing you can do with your talents, abilities, and skills. You may find you are in the wrong place and might want to explore where God might have you work instead. That can be scary and it will change a lot of things. Hopefully for the best. The travel should be the result of wanting to be the person God created you to be, to be the person that Jesus role modeled for you to follow.
Jesus often ended his conversations with people he met, with come follow me. See traveling again. It meant to be willing to hang out with Jesus long enough to get what was important in life. It meant discovering how we might love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and how might we love our neighbor the way Jesus loves us. It might mean to follow a class to learn what the difference that Jesus makes can be all about.
This new year, I hope you can travel for your faith, so that in six months or so, you can look back and see that you have changed and made a difference in your own life and in the lives of others. Looking back and seeing lives you've touched will be an awesome story to tell.
Come join us, travel with Jesus.
Next issue will be on the Adored part. How do we bow down and worship God and not some idol we have created that get's all of our attention.
Until then
God Bless Us Everyone
Pastor Jeff
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