For thousands of years people have taken a physical journey to find God. Jesus originated this concept. For years He traveled around the dusty lands of Israel and the surrounding countries. It’s easy to look into our bible and see a movie with quick cuts from city to city. Rarely have we taken the time to really understand the sheer amount of walking, traveling, donkey-riding, and sailing Jesus and His disciples accrued. Seth Barnes elaborates on it in his book Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline.
A journey is an act of leaving — a process of physical abandon that teaches us how to do the same spiritually. Perhaps, to find your true identity you need to abandon everything else… We go on a journey because he tells us to go – to leave. In physically leaving, we discover spiritual possibilities. Jesus spent three years leaving places, leaving people before finally leaving life itself. To know Jesus, you have to learn how to leave. In the end, the leaving is the finding. You abandon your earthly treasure; you receive a treasure in heaven. You abandon your father and your mother; you get the family of God. You abandon your life, and like a seed that dies and grows a hundred times its size, you find new abundant life.
I just start getting pumped up when I think about taking a physical journey somewhere. I identify with this idea of pilgrimage so much. It is on the road, trips to foreign lands, places of discomfort and challenge, that my faith grew up into itself. So often I try to find God in comfort when He is in the unsettling challenge of facing an entire world through faith. There is something about taking a journey that makes us find God in a unique way. All the prophets in the bible that lived in caves and mountains, all the people in the bible that sojourned from land to land, our God is not a God of location but rather a God of time. In those times that we are dedicated to Him, we see so much and learn so much. There are things you learn on a journey you can learn nowhere else.
Why would a man leave everything? His identity? His home? His things? It’s simple. To find God. A wise man counts the cost of anything he invests in and I have counted the cost of not leaving. I have counted the pain of living a passive life that is filled with small dreams and little faith. It’s not for me.
A long time ago I got attached to things of this world. I wanted a nice life, to go to a good college, settle down with a quiet wife. Live in a white-picket fenced house. In a way all I wanted was normalcy. This world is messy, the last thing I needed was more risk. Most people who meet me nowadays cannot imagine I have ever been that person. Let alone ever desired a home. I do desire one from time to time, it’s just in a different place.
Take The World But Give Me Jesus – Ascend The Hill
I am not of this world.
Strange, eh? Have you ever met someone so unalike the status quo that they seem like an alien? Like Kevin Spacey in K-Pax? The Albino kid in Powder? Kramer from Seinfield? Ok, he’s probably not the type of of example I’m looking for.
Seriously though, have you ever met someone who is so truly different that when you are around them you feel as if… another world has touched you. I believe this is really what Christians are supposed to be like. Called to be completely unlike the culture around them. Not because culture is bad, but because a Christian should transcend culture. The followers of the Way of Jesus go against everything this world says. The very presence of a Christian should make you rich, bring healing to your soul and land, it should change the way you live and think. Like refreshing spring rain in a parched land, like clean air in a smoky room, like sunlight on a spring flower, the very presence of God is supposed to dwell with these Christians. To meet one should be as to encounter God. They are to be agents of a holy and royal priesthood, sons of the very being who made the heavens and the Earth.
Sometimes meeting a “Christian” can feel more like getting teeth pulled. Teeth that are perfectly healthy, mind you. Legalism, judgment, anger, wrath, naivety, disgust at things that are different, mono-cultural views on the world, foolish thinking seem more descriptive if anything. Or maybe they are extremely nice, pleasant, passive, a push-over, constantly saying sorry, watching injustice and feeling compassion yet never raising an arm to stop this injustice. Often instead of spreading the all surpassing love of God, a “Christian” comes off as damaging as a face-kicking mule unleashed at a wedding. I could offer many answers, perhaps they don’t actually know the bible, God, or who Jesus is. Perhaps they are foolish and ignorant like so many other people. Often though I think, they just have yet to have made the faith of being a follower of Christ real. Many people have a relationship with God, few desperately rely on it though for daily strength and wisdom. As God becomes real this world fades away and spiritual things become more tangible. It completely changes everything about being a “Christian.” It is no longer about being in part of a little social group. Rather it is part of a heritage, of being a child of the King. It is something epic in scope and utterly world shaking.
In my own life I am still growing. I am still working through so much. It took me a long time to realize my place. Today though I am just beginning to grasp it. I work for the king of Heaven and Earth. The very God who formed me in His image and Has given me His spirit is my official employer, father, best friend, and life insurance coverage. He has great medical and dental as well. As God becomes everything to me I am learning to be less attached to this world. Like I mean way less attached. I burnt most of my things in a personal ceremony to make Christ my all and not the things I own or the memories I cling too.
When I left for Taiwan, in some ways I was just too immature for my pilgrimage. The journey would have been so much easier if not for my lack of maturity. God used that time in my life in the most incredible way. I wanted my journey to be about finding God but I left a pretty wounded and hurt individual. I had a lot of healing to do before I could really pursue Jesus the way I intended. I am not the same person I was two years ago. Now It’s time for another pilgrimage. To find God not as a sickly weakened man, but as a child of His.
Now as I prepare to leave once more, I am no longer leaving as a shattered and wounded man, but as a healed and extremely passionate foreigner on this Earth. Ultimately as a Christian that is all I am. A foreigner, a traveller, just passing through. It is in seizing this identity that I truly can find my purpose and know God. I was never intended to make Earth my home. To find my identity here would be living out a false reality. The closest thing on Earth to my real identity as a foreigner is found on the road. I am starting to feel more like those strange men you meet from time to time. Those wholly authentic Christians that are just not normal. Those people that leave a place more refreshed than when they found it. I didn’t always feel that way. I felt more like I left places in shambles. Now as Christ has worked in me and changed me I am so ready for the next journey. The next adventure. That is why I am leaving for another year.
I am ready to feed the hungry, care for the homeless, heal the sick. To see lives change, miracles occur, and victory over sin and death. I am ready to encounter the most heartbreaking realities of my time from people who have experienced genocide, AIDS, trafficking, alcoholism, betrayal, desperation, and hurt. I am ready to proudly and boldly proclaim, “Death before denial.” Serving Christ, if even it takes me to the grave. I am ready to journey. Take the world, but give me Jesus!
“Feed the hungry and touch the sick
We go’n help the homeless and love the kids
We go’n move to a place where it’s hard to live
And folks die young and they learn to kill
Light the sky up change your bio
Live for something more than things you buy up
Serve and save learn and change
Trust in the king who can turn this thang
Yeah they ain’t every seen a shine like this
Look up they never see the sky like this
I’m on and this little light I got
Imma let it shine til the day I drop
Heart quit pumping only way I stop
Til then I’m a light post on your block ”- Lecrae – Fuego
