A Spiritual Model

When the Celtic monk was led to a pilgrimage, it was a pilgrimage without a destination.  Instead of leaving home with some holy place in view, they left going for the love of God to know not where.  With no destination as a goal, they put themselves in a small round rudderless boat and pushed off from the shore leaving the oar behind them.   They trusted God to use the wind and the current to take them to the place where He wanted them to be which they came to call the place of their resurrection. 

 

Their spiritual model for this type of pilgrimage was Abraham who was called to journey in response to the call of God without knowing where he was going.  "Go from your country...to the land that I will show you."  (Genesis 12:1)  Even though Abraham did not know where he was going, he was willing to go.  In the New Testament letter which bears the name "The Letter to the Hebrews" the Word says, "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going."  (Hebrews 11:8)

 

When I reflect back on the genesis days of my setting forth on the journey with God, there was a sense of being willing to go wherever, but the truth is, I had mostly claimed out the definition of wherever as the itinerant ministry within the Methodist Church.  And while I have confidence that a part of my calling was specific to that purpose, had it not been, it would have taken major intervention of the part of angels to get me to see a different way forward.  Too often our willingness to go is more about our own agendas than it is a kind of abandonment that welcomes the wherever calling of God.  It is no wonder the Celtic saints chose Abraham as their model.  Abraham had it right at the beginning.