“Love doesn’t make the world go around. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.”
_Franklin Jones
Sonja and I like to take what we call rambling vacations. We pick a start date and a finish date, and then we just get in our car and head out, deciding each day which direction to go and where to stop along the way.
With me being a planner almost to a fault and with Sonja being (How can I say this without getting in trouble!) a little more “spontaneous”, (Okay, let’s be honest, a whole lot more spontaneous!) the relaxed and unrestricted schedule of “rambling” has created some of our most treasured vacation memories.
For Sonja, it allows her to embrace her spontaneity to the fullest and for me it allows me to relax and not feel guilty for not leveraging every moment of every day for some worthy cause or purpose.
It’s been a huge win/win for us.
There’s an important lesson that our rambling vacations have taught me about life: You don’t have to have all the details at your fingertips to get somewhere.
I phrase it this way, using a phrase (and book title) coined by Robert Quinn: Build the bridge as you walk on it.
When I evaluate our lives together I am amazed at the life Sonja and I have been privileged to live and are currently living. It has been and continues to be an amazingly wonderful life.
How did we get here? I really don’t know. We never had master plan for our lives. We didn’t have “seed money” to get us started; we barely had enough money to buy a bag of beans when we started. But we did want to go somewhere with our lives. We did want to leverage our lives to the fullest for the glory of God and so we just started—building the bridge as we walked on it.
Figuring it out as we went along.
Three steps forward, two steps back.
Zigging and then zagging; seldom a straight line to anywhere.
I bet from the angel’s view from heaven, watching us live our lives has been like watching ants as they meander along from point A to point…somewhere.
However…
There was one constant about our rambling vacations that is true about our coming-and-going life together and that is, it was always our ultimate goal to get back home while honoring our Lord Jesus along the way.
That’s a pretty good template for life.
- First, if you know why you’re doing what you’re doing you don’t have to know how to do what you want to do. Just start.
- Second, if you have an general idea of where you want to go with your life, you don’t have to know how to get there. Just start.
The ONE THING for today: Never, never, never allow your lack of knowledge or resources to stop you from taking the next step. Start! Start today! Start making the next wisest decision you know to make. Start building the bridge as you walk on it.
Home is waiting.
Pastor Kemp,
Your thoughts today were spot on. I remember a staff meeting with John Hagee back in the mid 90’s where he took portions of his upcoming Sunday sermon, encouraging the entire staff from associate pastors to janitorial staff to understand that the Lord knows A to Z, We also kind of know A to Z, more like we know A and Z. It is B through Y that is the challenge. But for those of us who know and at least partially understand scripture we grasp the concept that when we get to Z we win, because Jesus has already won. Truly, when we trust in him and the guidance of the Holy Spirit the journey from B through Y, regardless of the challenges, can and is truly joyful, as long as we keep our eye on Him. Going on an adventure with your bride as you describe is something Faye and I have enjoyed over the past 35 years living here in Texas, known as a “WHOLE NUTHER COUNTRY”! Traveling for ministry and prison ministry we have crisscrossed the state multiple times, gone through multiple autos, and covered over a million miles. Over 600K miles in just two used Town Cars alone. The times we took off on our way back home and decided to go north instead of due east as was our final destination, and we ended up in some small town with one red light and a Dairy Queen, sat down and just visited with some of the locals. It brought a smile to their face and joy to our hearts. Take care and in the inimitable words of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, “HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU”
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Sorry about my late response! It’s been a bit of a “drinking from a fire hydrant” season for me.
I appreciate your remarks. You are exactly right: It is those B – Y situations that test our courage and our willingness to trust God. One of my frequent statements is: Currently, I don’t know what God is up too, but I do know God and that is enough. And it truly is.
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So very true, and a point in closing, if we knew ahead of time what all was going to be involved, and what all we would encounter during B thru Y, it is quite possible we could not handle that, thus B thru Y is like peeling back layers of an onion, sort of speak. But you are so spot on, we may not know what God is up to, but we can know God, and if we do, that is enough!
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