Then and Now

It was ten years ago that I wrote my first blog.  Another way of writing about the distance between then and now is to say then was over 1300 blog postings ago.  Had I been told back in 2008 that I would write that many of these things, I would have moved away from the keyboard and declared it too big a task.  And, if it had been necessary to write them all in one day, or one week, or even one year, it would have been impossible.  Fortunately, it was only necessary to write one at a time.

 

Our journey of faith can be understood in much the same way.  In the beginning we had no idea what was going to be ahead.  We could not have imagined the great moments we would share and the tough overwhelming moments we would experience.  Mountain tops and deep valleys are hard to see at the beginning of the journey.  If we make it to tomorrow and the tomorrow afterwards, it will be because of the grace of God and our willingness to walk one step at a time, one day at a time.  Grace sustains us for the journey of faith, but it is our faith in the Giver of grace which keeps us on the road.

 

In the beginning most of us figure moving forward with Christ is "all about me."  It is about those things of the human spirit like determination, and will power, and discipline.  It is about learning the lessons of experience and fortifying ourselves with the spiritual inspiration of others.  As the years slip by us and we see them gathering in a number that we know is far greater than the ones awaiting us, we come to a place of realizing how the journey is more about the Christ who walks ahead of us and with us.  Were He not alongside of us, we would have never made it from then to now.  The road which stretches far ahead He does not allow us to see.  All we can see is where the next foot is to be planted and sometimes not even that far.  And, so we walk knowing only that He is with us and that He has every intention of getting us from then to now and even beyond.