[T]here is one occasion when Jesus talked to His disciples about going to a place ahead of them and the disciple Thomas in John 14 said to Jesus, “Lord we don’t know where you are going so how can we know the way?” Very logical question – a good statement to make. And Jesus answered..., in John 14:6, “I am the way.” “Thomas, any more questions or does that satisfy you? You don’t have to know where you are going. I am the way.” Where is irrelevant; how is irrelevant; who is important. Now of course it sounds high risk and some of us don’t like that. But the Christian life is lived out of relationship with God. The Christian life is not lived out of principles that we are trying to implement. The Christian life is not lived out of rules of life we are trying to obey. It is lived out of a relationship with a God who is alive and a God who has a mind of His own and a God who is in business, and a God who is totally capable. The question then is whether we trust Him. In John 12:26 Jesus said, “Whoever serves me must follow Me; and where I am, My servant also will be.” So where are you supposed to be? “Where I am.” How do you know who is a servant of Jesus? “Because his preoccupation is to be where I am.” ...God’s guidance is more like a compass bearing that He gives us than it is like a road map. Now we’re much more secure with a road map. You want to get from here to here, so go you on Map Quest and you put down your origin, you put down your destination, and it prints out this beautiful sheet of paper that tells you to go three miles this way, turn left and go five miles that way, turn right and go 106 miles that way. And it’s all exact and you know exactly where you are going. But that isn’t how God works in guiding us. He puts a compass into our heart and says, “This is the direction; just move in that direction and don’t worry about the detail.” When the writer to the Hebrews writes about Abraham later in Hebrews 11:8 he says, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” That is either totally irresponsible or totally godly. He obeyed and went. And the issue is not where he was going; he didn’t know where he was going; the issue was “who am I going with? who is directing my path?” And that of course is one of the great adventures of the Christian life. You don’t have to know about tomorrow. Trust Him. In fact, refuse to get too worked up. In fact we are told in Scripture, Jesus told us, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow.” But we are, because we don’t take that seriously. Instead, let Him be the One who guides and directs and leads. ............................................................................................................................... Charles Price, The Peoples Church, Toronto, September 9, 2007 From "Starting the Journey," Part 1 of the series "Abraham: Living by Faith on a Rocky Road" |