Journey

“There's no journey like a shared one.” ~ When Hope Calls Christmas

    

   According to Merriam-Webster, a journey is an act or instance of traveling from one place to another. I don't know about you but I like to travel and I enjoy sharing the experience with my family and friends.

 I'm not talking about a vacation, for instance though; I'm talking about the journey we call life. Our journey begins the day we are born and ends when we die, at least for our bodies it ends. As we grow so does our independence, and depending on what hand we are dealt life is easy as a child or difficult. We begin to learn how to navigate this world with the help of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers, coaches, and friends. 

    This journey that we are on isn’t easy and we need people on every leg of this journey. As I mentioned earlier, in the first leg of this journey we are surrounded by people who love us and do their best to guide and support us as we figure out life. As we enter the next leg of our journey, the baton is passed from family to friends as we become more independent from the adults who took care of us, and surround ourselves with friends who “get us”. Our friends on this part of our journey can help make us or break us. The people we allow in our lives are just as important as the people that we keep out of our lives. The choices we make as teenagers and young adults have a lasting impact whether we realize it or not.

    The baton is passed off to our significant other for the next leg of the journey and we begin to realize that life is not a sprint, but a marathon. The pace and stride we take begin to slow and lengthen as we make big life choices. When do we get married? How quickly do we want to start a family? Do we buy a house or rent? Is this the right career path? With all those decisions to make life can be overwhelming, especially if we choose to go at it alone. 

    Community is an important part of surviving the journey. We need like-minded people who share our beliefs and will listen to our struggles, and help us celebrate our successes. We also need people in our lives who won’t always be on our side. We need people who question us. People who won’t just go along with what we say and do, but make us stop and think about what we are doing and why we are doing it. Can I challenge you here? Intentionally seek someone who is different than you and befriend them. 

    Take this journey in stride. Allow people in your life. Seek God and ask him to show you who should be in your circle. Remember Jesus loved everyone but had a small circle of friends and an even smaller group that he knew he could rely on. Jesus had Judas in his small circle of friends, so it’s to be expected that we will have a Judas or two as well. We will face conflicts with people because we aren’t perfect and we shouldn’t expect others to be. We need to be like Jesus and love others for who they are not who we want them to be.

    I’ve always had a community that surrounds me, but I haven’t always accepted it. Acceptance. We have to accept that others want to be in our lives. We have to accept that not everyone we want to be in our lives needs to be in our lives. We have to accept that God will put people in our lives that we don’t necessarily want in our lives, but they turn out to be just the person we need for that leg of our journey. No matter the leg of the journey we are on, we should build and strengthen our community, serve and love others, and gain one more for the Kingdom of God.

    As this year comes to a close, and the new year begins I want to focus on the people that God has put in my circle. I want to create a community of people that I can enjoy this journey with. I’m not going to sit back and just be, I’m going to open the gift of life each day, and spread some cheer along the way. I will keep you posted as to how this new leg of my journey goes. Here’s to living life BIG, making changes to be better, allowing others into my circle, and sharing Jesus’ love with as many people as I can. When my journey on this earth ends I want to hear on the other side, “Good job my good and faithful servant. You ran the race well.”