The Journey

On Saturday night, before I went to sleep, I prayed specifically that God would make His message for me clear this week at Church, and that I would learn from it, and be uplifted.

So you can imagine the jolt it gave me when we got into Church, and the first thing the lady who was taking the service did was to pray that everyone in the congregation would hear God speaking to them, and would hear His message. Wow! Talk about getting that prayer answered!

One of the main focuses of the service today was worship, and lots of it! We sang so so many hymns, about 9 I think! And I loved it. This was by far my favourite of them, and I'm glad I found it on Youtube, so I can share it with you ...


Beautiful One, By The Tree

Today the sermons (they have two, one for all the family, and then a more 'grown-up' one once the kids have gone to KatCh), were all talking about The Journey. And even that title spoke to me, having just found my way back onto my Journey with God.

The family sermon started with everyone being asked to write down on a piece of paper the shortest journey they'd made this week, and the longest one they'd made in the past year. For us, Seren wrote the shortest journey as being her weekly trip to Brownies, and our longest journey being to Cardigan, West Wales, last August. And then we talked about the most important journey of all, our journey with God.

Once Seren had gone through to KatCh, the 'grown-up' service started, and was led by a man. He read from Exodus 33, and he talked about journeys he has been on, like when he walked from Lowestoft to Southwold and back. Now THAT was a long way! And he said that even though the walk left him with a dodgy hip, he was still glad he did it, because it was the last time he was able to spend quality time with his friend who passed away some time later.

And he compared our physical journeys with our spiritual journey. For physical journeys, we have maps, compasses, familiar sights, or SatNavs to guide our way, and without them, we are lost. On our spiritual journey, the Bible is our map, and Jesus is our SatNav, and without Him, we are truly lost.

And just like our physical journeys, where we might experience delays, problems, take wrong turns, get lost, get stuck in traffic, etc; that also holds true for our spiritual journey. I certainly took a wrong turn in trying to cope with my father's battle with cancer, and to an extent, in trying to cope with the kids having CF too. I didn't read my map, and I didn't pray, which to me, is the equivalent of not even turning on the SatNav. So I got lost. Until God stepped in, turned on the SatNav for me, and told me, in no uncertain terms, to turn around and get back on the right road.

And now I feel that I'm back on track, with Jesus as my journey's destination.

He also said that everyone starts their journeys at different points, giving the example of C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia ... "I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did." [C.S. Lewis]

Now that must have been some journey! To go from an athiest to a Christian in one short car trip. God did some serious talking to C.S. Lewis that day! I found out that I can read about C.S. Lewis' journey within a journey in his book Surprised by Joy, which I definitely want to track down and read.

So for me, the messages I got from the service were: 1) I'm on the right path, with Jesus as my journey destination; 2) There may well be bumps in the road (like with the kids' CF, and my Dad's cancer battle, and now Adrian's Nan being so very poorly), but as long as I keep reading my 'map' (Bible) and keep my 'SatNav' on (ie keep praying to Jesus), then I won't lose my way again; and 3) The destination (Heaven) will be more than worth the arduous journey.

I'll leave you with the Church's Text for the Week:

I will praise you O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Psalm 108 v 3-4