Journey.

Spiritual Journey.

When churches talk about being on a spiritual journey,

what are they really talking about?

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During our first summer of being married, my husband and I decided to take a road trip.  We didn’t have the money or vacation time to take a real vacation, so the question was, what can we do in a weekend?  Then it turned into, how far can we drive and come back in 24 hours.

So we got out a map, and drew a big, odd-shaped oval.  I used a very basic computer program to figure out the mileage.  We loaded the car with food from Aldi, and at midnight on a Friday, we left our home in Michigan.  In planning the trip, we knew we didn’t want to stay on the interstates and not really see the country we were going to see.  So on our maps, I had carefully picked out state highways and byways, highlighting them on our printed internet maps.  Via interstate, we made our way southeast to Kentucky, and then took byways over to the southwest corner of Virginia.

The thing is – neither of us had ever been in the mountains before, and especially not by car.  So when you’re looking at a map, you think, oh this inch of road should only take an hour.

And then you get on it.

And realize all the curves in it mean you are going up and down mountains at 35 mph.

Let’s just say that it adds to your time.  Considerably.

Our fantastic trip that went down through the edges of TN, VA, NC, SC, back onto the interstate in Atlanta, and north through Nashville and Indianapolis went from 24 hours to 36 hours.  Non-stop.  It’s one of our best memories, and yet it was not the journey we had planned at all.

We could have taken the interstates and just buzzed along, not really seeing the mountains and towns.  But we didn’t.  There was more than one way to get down to Atlanta and back, and we took the crazy, twisted, long way.  Even now, 10 years later, it sounds more fun than crazy to me, though, to most other people, I’m sure it sounds insane and like a bad marital episode just waiting to happen.

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I’ve been thinking lately about spiritual journeys, and I’ve been wondering what the underlying assumptions are when a church or a pastor talks about it.  From my experience, it seems to be that there is only one right road to take, and their job (and yours, as a Christian) is to get you on that road so you can be on the interstate to heaven.  {Note: I am not talking about different modes of salvation.  This is not about Jesus is the only way vs. all religions are equal.  This is about beliefs within the bounds of Christendom.}

But what do we miss when we stay on the highway?  We miss seeing the coves and hollows, the small towns living in the valleys.  You won’t see trailers on  a hillside with the family cemetery in the front yard from the highway.  You don’t see the school bus stop signs at bottoms of impossibly steep driveways and wonder ‘how do people live down here’? (Seriously.  When it snows, what do you do???)

Life off the highway is different.  It’s not wrong or bad or sinful.  It’s just a different way of driving.  A different way of living, of believing.  Of following.

I have started hearing the healthy rumblings from the church, telling people to wrestle with God on their journey.  ‘Talk to God about your doubts and struggles.’  But I can’t help feeling and hearing the undertone of ‘work through your doubts to find the right answer.’   ‘Join us all on the right path.’

And that’s where I have to wonder if their meaning of journey is really honest or accurate.  Are they really encouraging people to follow Jesus no matter what it looks like?  Or are they really telling you to follow Jesus according to their rules and priorities?  The life of following Jesus isn’t something that is horizontal and linear – something that moves step by step.

What if this life is something that is curvy, hilly, vertical, upside-down, backwards, even impossibly steep, so that people look at you and think, ‘how do they live like that?’

Sometimes my journey feels like I’m spinning in circles, and other days like I’m just spinning my tires.  My journey doesn’t fit easily on a straight path.

If the church is serious about using the journey metaphor, then it has to have the freedom to be an honest one.

There is more than one way to get to Atlanta and back, and I know which way I prefer.

This is the first of a three-part series on Journey. Part two is Who Decides Christian Maturity.