What is your destination? (Advent 2017)

I think we all know where we are headed - to Christmas. Most of us have a regular pattern that we follow each December: looking over our shopping list, planning the gifts, buying the gifts, scheduling the parties, making the cookies.......you get the idea.  It often looks the same year after year. Even though the destination is December 24-25 and all of our normal family festivities I want you to think outside the box this year. The destination may be Christmas, but let's take a special journey to get there this year. 

Take a different road, plan a new event, give in a new way. Make this journey to Bethlehem different than any other you have taken before. If your destination is simply to arrive at worship on December 24 - attend your normal chosen worship service all dressed in your holiday finery, then go home for the feast you are missing so much. Or maybe your destination is also to arrive on December 24, do all of the Santa fun, make sure the gifts are wrapped and stockings are hung, then collapse in fatigue on December 25. Or there could be one more destination - to simply exist through these next 3 weeks and get to December 26. To push through the grief of the holiday season without your loved ones, or with a life that is so far from what you expected that Christmas is the last thing you want to celebrate.

We all have a destination. The journey holds the real excitement! So many unexpected things can happen along a journey and many of them are missed because we aren't paying attention. So this year make it a thoughtful journey. Make December and Advent 2017 the journey you have been waiting and planning for all year. 

Your first task is to really ponder what you are seeking. 

Acts 17:22-28a Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship- and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our own being."  NIV

As we start this Journey of Advent, choose a destination. Prayerfully consider where you want to be at the end of trip. Do you want to be closer to God? Do you desire a fuller, richer life of faith? Maybe you want to draw closer to someone you have been estranged from. The destination is a personal one. Maybe you want to completely venture out in a new path of business or personal growth. Choose wisely! Once you have that destination in mind, be ready for the ride of your life. This Journey is going to be like nothing before.

Advent challenge #2: Choose a 'destination'. Write it down. Don't get bogged down in how you will get there, simply dream about arriving at that chosen destination.

destination

[des-tuh-ney-shuh n] 

 

noun

1.

the place to which a person or thing travels or is sent:

2.

the purpose for which something is destined.

adjective

3.

noting an attraction or event that people are willing to travel a long distance to 

get to, either because it is very good or distinctive or because it is located in a   popular and interesting place.

Prayer: Lord of all, guide me today in choosing a destination that will help me grow. Help me look with expectation into the unknown. Be with me as I take the first steps and give me patience to enjoy the journey and all that is holds along the way. Amen.