By the Way: Life is a journey

By Medicine Hat News on February 23, 2019.

You have heard it said that life is a journey. And like many journeys this one has its rough patches, its smooth places, its places of spectacular and moving beauty, its places of sorrow. Each experience in life works together with the others to form and make the person that we are.

Most journeys have a destination. Our life journey is no different. Otherwise we would be like the man who says, “I don’t know where I’m going but I’m sure making good time.” For Christians, the journey of life is a journey home.

This truth was pictured in the lives of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who spent their lives as nomads, as people with “no fixed address.” The author of Hebrews writes: 8- It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. 9-And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith – for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so, did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. 10-Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. While to the casual observer it would seem that Abraham and his son and grandson were wanderers with no destination in mind. The reality was quite different. Abraham saw his life as a journey home.

Personally, I made many journeys home. I attended boarding school for my high school years. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive and one that didn’t happen a lot. Then I went away for university and seminary. It was always good to get home.

Our journey home as a Christian is a journey to heaven. This journey is taken on a road prepared by Jesus who “is the Way.” And it is a journey which we do not take alone. God provides travelling partners for us through this life as he himself accompanies us. And finally, at the last he takes us home.

Have you ever been somewhere and commented that it felt like home? We have never seen our ultimate destination nor have we lived there. But the fact is that we live here on this earth “by faith” and “like a foreigner.”

It is this hope which inspires us and encourages us along the way. It is this journey that we invite you to join.

Pastor Jim Bredeson is senior pastor at Victory Lutheran Church.

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