Roads

It's camp season, which takes us to the mountains. But one of the dirty little secrets of faith is that you don't have to climb the mountains to get that feeling; you can get that same feeling, even deeper, in the valleys. 

But the even dirtier little secret of faith is that neither is the place you're supposed to live. 

Most of us know that, and it sends us searching for pastures and fields somewhere. Somewhere calm and flat where we can just sort of chill for awhile and have a good, decent life in the shadow of our Shepherd, where there are still waters and green grass and His rod and His staff protect us. 

And isn't that a wonderful image? 

Of course it is. But that ain't it, either. 

The life of faith isn't meant to be spent on the mountains or in the valleys or even in the pastures; it's meant to be spent on the road. 

It's meant to be spent moving. Traveling from place to place. Finding new hangouts. Meeting new folks. Trying new things. Growing. 

It's meant to be journeying as Jesus journeyed, into the towns and the gardens and the sacred spaces and the forbidden places. Into the sanctuaries and onto the streets and down by the rivers and through the workplaces and right smack in the middle of the markets.

Moving. 

Climbing and falling and sinking and growing and going. Always going. 

Because if you're not moving, you're never going to find anything more of God than you know of Him right now. If you never run into Him in a new place, you're never going to learn a new thing about Him. If you don't find yourself in need of more of Him, you won't get it. 

You might just find that your Shepherd kept moving toward better pastures, but you were so locked into this one that you didn't even notice how brown and dying it is. Then, you look around and the God you thought you'd been looking for - that steady one in the flat places - isn't here any more. 

He kept moving. 

Just like you were supposed to. 

So this constant tug that we find ourselves in between the mountains and the valleys, seemingly bouncing back and forth between one place and the other and everywhere in between, isn't some failure of the fallen human life; it's exactly where the faith is supposed to have us. 

Where will you go next?