So, you remember that post I wrote last week about letting go? Well, I think I had to face on of my greatest fears in writing this blog and lived that post a little this past weekend. While I hope you picked up on the jest, I wasn’t kidding about the having to let go some myself. I’m looking to buy a place of my own right now and I went to an open house for a place that I thought coming in was so-so, but the location was nearly perfect. I was thinking I could fix up the place, I want to fix up a place, if it wasn’t by some stretch of the imagination terribly undervalued, but not even that could keep my interest. There were just some aspects of the place that I couldn’t get over. And not that coin operated laundry is a big deal, but come on, I have to have some standards. Even if they’re strange or low. But what good are standards if I don’t really know the purpose of the endeavor?

Direction determines destination
Look, I’m only twenty-five. I know I don’t need to have the world figured out yet, but I recall three words that were said to me in college by a man far wiser than I wanted to give him credit. While I may not know the destination (because who can accurately predict with any certainty?), I need some direction. I need to take some steps along a path in that heading. In other words, I need a plan. Without this, I can only float along without any sense of direction or accomplishment as I have no clue where I am in regards to any other significant landmarks and I can’t much compare with the start as I am closer to nothing, only farther from the starting. Without direction, priorities cannot be. As priorities alone carry no weight. It’s the long term, the destination that grants them weight.

Direction over destination
As I said in my earlier aside, who can accurately predict the future? Just because we have put ourselves on the road to a destination doesn’t mean the path won’t wind around, doesn’t mean there might not be road work or a blockage up ahead. I only means we are moving toward our destination. However, it gives us a means of measuring progress, a certain assurance we are going in the desired direction and a way of estimating when we’ll get there. Life isn’t certain. Nothing in this world is guaranteed. Who’s to say the road isn’t impassable and all other routes to that destination don’t require too costly a detour? Who’s to say that our destination today matches what’s important to us tomorrow? This is why the direction must matter more than the destination.

You won’t get there
Up until now, it’s sounded like I’m telling you you’ll never reach your destination. Once again, nothing is absolute. I can’t say that. However, by focusing on the steps along the way and picking our heads up intermittently to verify, we are setting ourselves up far more to reach our destination than otherwise. And without a destination, there is nowhere we are getting, so how can we ever arrive? Let’s face it, we’re all growing and learning as we must. Our understanding of ourselves, God, the world is ever-changing. At some point, you’ll find that your destination no longer matches who you are or what you stand for. Some point, you may even reach that destination. Now what? You pick another point on the map and you keep walking. To stay would be to allow complacency and complacency is a painfully slow death.

Friends, you are living a story, but not just any, yours. As with any good story, there must be a plot and a plot is based around some sort of trek or journey with a destination. However, what makes the story is not the destination and it certainly isn’t the beginning. It’s the journey itself. It’s the pain and joy, love and defeat the character incurs along the way. Reaching the destination is merely the icing on the cake. Why should our stories be any different? Why should our stories be any less captivating and enthralling? To say they should be would only insult a God who is captivating and adventurous. And isn’t He writing the bigger Story in which each of ours takes place?