Tom-Tom & Choose Your Own Adventure Books
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about a slew of different things. One of those things I have been pondering a lot is God’s plan for our lives. If you’re like me, it sometimes feels like there isn’t a plan. We get up, go to school/work, come home, eat, sleep, study, repeat. Routine seems to kill us in life. Is there more to life? Where is this magical plan that God supposedly has for our lives?
I would argue that most of us live a simple, safe, non-demanding faith. We never give too much but expect an enormous amount out of God. What if the reason Christianity has gotten boring for some us is because we’ve become boring followers of Jesus? Let me offer two modern day parables that shed light on the answer to these important questions.
Example One:
I recently got a Tom-Tom, GPS gadget. A Tom-Tom is an in-car GPS device that allows you to program in the address to where you’re traveling and it directs you there. Along the way, it also helps you identify key points of interest (i.e., restaurants, hotels, gas stations). This thing is pretty sweet! I received it while my wife and I were in Virginia visiting with my side of the family. While traveling back, there was some accident on the I-81 northbound so my wife and I decided to exit and try to get around it. This amazing piece of technology re-routed us! Keep in mind that the destination never changed…just the route!
Example Two:
When I was a kid, I loved these choose-your-own-adventure books. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, here is a quick back story. These stories are chapter-by-chapter accounts of fictional story lines. At the end of each chapter, you get a choice to decide how the story continues. The end of the chapter directs you to a specific page number for a certain continuation of the story to occur. The story eventually comes to an end but you, the reader, have a choice in the development of the story.
Aren’t these two examples so true of how our lives go? Both are working to an end. It’s not like the end suddenly disappears. Instead, the end remains the same but the journey is where the fun happens. For Christians, I would argue that there is more to Christianity than the end.
How might this life be a journey? That is the essence of my ramblings in this blog. We are so focused on the end that we forget that Christ journeys with us today. We forget that this Christian life is a journey. It develops, it has unforeseen bumps in the road…there are times the journey is easy and times when it is flat-out grueling.
May we not approach our faith so rigid and routine. Instead, let us be known as a people of Tom-Tom and Choose-Your-Own Adventure faith. Are we willing to take risks, to get dirty, to possibly be hurt for the cause of Christ? Are we ready at times to step off the well-worn path to experience a God who intricately and intimately knows us? Do we even know what it means for God to guide our lives?
Blessings to your journey as you find yourself engrossed in a love story like no other and experience the freedom of a GPS system that will get you to your destination even when you step off the routine path to truly live!
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