The Journey - Mystery Tour

Have you ever wondered where your life is heading, or why a particularly unfair thing has happened to you, or someone close? If not, you are unique. Everyone I know at some point has found their journey impossible to figure out, and right then, at that time, we sink in despair with our head in our hands. It can look different when we look back. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but as you know, hindsight can only be valuable afterwards.

When I was younger, coach companies would organise ‘Mystery Tours’. These were great, because you didn’t know where you were going, but you did know you would be back home for tea time! It was safe, and exciting because everybody on the coach was in the same situation. Many a youth group would arrange a mystery tour, because it could be exciting and you might even get to sit close to, or beside your favourite girl.

We are in a slightly different place as a people of faith. This time we do know our destination, but we don’t know how we will get there. What route will life take us? In fact what happy and sad things will take place along the way? Will these things change us in a way that we become a different person? Maybe so. In fact, I would suggest, almost certainly so. A wise man once said, “It’s not what happens to us that makes us change for the better. It is how we react to them”. Wise words. This mystery tour can make us bitter, or better and it all depends on how we handle the unknowns.

When we are on our own mystery tour, it is important that we don’t judge the journey until we near our destination. You might not know where you are going, but keep in mind that God the Divine Driver does!

Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me. John 14:5,6

Made It!

Here we are, into 2014. We made it in spite of the pitfalls of the past year. For many, 2013 will be remembered for bad health, bad news, bad decisions, and the list could go on, but here we are at the start of a new year. It’s like having a blank piece of paper and starting to write your own story. Last year, this year, they are just the same except time has moved on, right? Oh so wrong!

Looking back we can see the whole year as it was. We have the benefit of hindsight, but no one has the gift of foresight to see what we will write on our blank sheet of paper in 2014. So we must take it slowly and patiently. No use in wondering or worrying what we will be doing in September, when we don’t know what tomorrow holds. When I was (a lot) younger, I went to camp and loved the fun and games, especially at night. We didn’t have a torch as we looked for hedgehogs in the nearby woods, but we did have a hurricane lamp that hung on the centre pole of the bell tent. You know one of those useless lights that you held above your head to see as much as you could while stumbling in the darkness, trying to find the path (and the hedgehogs)?

It is no surprise then that we have this advice in Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” There is good reason that we cannot see too far ahead of our lives. Who would really want to know what awaits us in the coming year? I don’t. Looking back gives me good reason to be thankful I didn’t always know what the next step was. So back to the verse. I am sure that God knows what is best for us, and only allows the light to shine on our feet, and that next step we take. Useless for finding hedgehogs, but great for living our life. What is this light? It is His Word. The Bible. So where better to set your year in motion than by reading the timeless light He has given. His Word. It is eternal, and can be trusted to get us through this day, and indeed every year we are given!