The Journey: As Important As The Destination

Pastor Randy Corbin, Transitional Lead Pastor 

It has taken me awhile to recognize that fact.  For too long my single focus has been on accomplishing the task, the goal, or the initiative.   So, with whole-heartedness, I have sought to strengthen the church or extend the Kingdom through conversions, new members, greater attendance, a remodeling project or building a new facility.  And, I have gone to new ministries with a vision of some kind of enlargement or deepening in mind.

Few if any of my projects or ministries have gone unhindered.  A few have been meteoric in development, but most have been jerky in their growth; and frankly, some have faltered and utterly failed.

What I have discovered through the years, however, is that I have placed way too much focus on the destination and I have totally ignored the journey.  While I have cast my attention on the success and failure of the destination, i.e. did I reach my vision or dream, God was at times more interested in what was happening to me in the midst of the journey.  It was I who placed the emphasis on the destination but God was more interested in developing me than on the measures of success that I established.

We may think we have the solutions of how to get through this pandemic.  We may even spend time suggesting and recommending when groups should assemble and how we should get back to normal.  Solving this “mess” and getting back to normal may seem our goal.  But, could it be God has a deeper goal for that and it has more to do with our souls and hearts.  We have often prayed, “Lord, make us more like You.  Transform us.”  Well, could it be that He is answering that prayer through this situation?

God is not just about helping us reach our destinations (to the other side of this pandemic).  He is just as interested in building you and me (sometime even more so).  Consequently, allow those pressure points to fashion us into the person He has designed us to become – the likeness of Christ.  Thus, we yield to the Potter’s hand as He crafts us into the character of Christ and the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

At the end of the journey, when the Master announces, “well done Thou good and faithful servant” it will not just be for what we have done but for what we have become.  And, I wonder if He may be even more interested in not what is in our hand but what is in our heart.

So, your journey and mine is just as important as our destination, and what are we becoming as important as what we are doing.

Thanks for becoming with me even through this pandemic!