Most of us are on it before we realize we are on our way. We begin with this moment of saying "Yes" to Jesus, but it seems like an experience of the present moment and not the first step of a journey which will last a life time. Even our cursory readings of the gospel in those beginning days should have alerted us to the reality of the journey which was ahead, but somehow we started oblivious to what our decision really meant. Jesus was always walking and always inviting those around Him to come along with Him and we should have figured out that the life of faith was not a static thing, but a life that was always in motion.
Of course, to speak of the motion of life is not to describe some physical exercise, but to say that the spiritual life to which Christ calls us is one which is always bent toward what is ahead. It was the Apostle Paul who left us with that great image set forth with the words, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on...." (Philippians 3:13) In the beginning we might think more than we should about those beginning moments instead of the unknown journey ahead of us to wherever. What is also true is that wherever is not where we see ourselves going if we are able to contemplate a spiritual journey in those beginning days.
We tend to borrow from the experience of others, our expectations of what going with Jesus is all about, and visions that belong more to us than the One who has called us. Thus, any journey with Christ that we might consider is not necessarily the one to the unknown future where wherever exists, but into a future which we plan and set out to make happen. If we are fortunate we will early on come to understand that abandonment to self for the sake of Christ is the place where we begin to embrace the journey to wherever which, of course, is what Christ had in his eye when He looked at us and said, "Come."
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