Nomad or Pilgrim

Over the Christmas break I traveled from Kentucky to Missouri, to Texas, to Oklahoma, back to Missouri, then back to Kentucky. I don't even want to figure out how many hours and how many miles that is. It gave me a lot of time to think about a lot of different things. One thing I realized is that the life of a Christian actually incorporates two different kinds of journeys.

The first is that of Pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a deliberate journey taken by a devoted follower to well-established shrines of their faith. In the physical sense it means a Christian who travels to Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Rome, etc...to see the places where the stories of their beliefs actually occurred. In a spiritual sense the landmarks are equally recognizable by Christians who have already journeyed further ahead, to which they often give the sage advice, "it's a normal stage in our faith". This includes things like inital salvation, Baptism (both of the Holy Spirit and publicly by a ceremony including water), the first blushes of excitement when you tell everyone how amazing Jesus is, that first struggle to overcome the sins from life before Christ, the first victory, the first failure and the accompanying confession and repentance and restoration, the times God seems to fall silent. All of these are "normal" steps on the Christian pilgrimage, where the destination is heaven and the journey is a process of "entire sanctification".

The other journey isn't talked about nearly so often. It's not one I really understand even though I've taken it a couple times. It's the journey of a nomad. A nomad is a person who wanders around without a clear destination in sight. They are only seeking to meet their immediate needs. There is no path, no maps, and often no guides because no one has been that way before. This is the journey the Hebrews took after they left Egypt, but before they reached the Promised Land. They spent 40 years wandering in circles through the Sinai Wilderness, essentially going no where.

It is this journey that often causes the most heartache but also the most growth. The journey of a nomad is one of immense faith, to trust God to lead who knows where, through who knows what, for who knows how long. It's not an easy journey to give up the security one has established, the comfortable and predictable routines. To go into places of faith where daily Bible readings bring minimal assurances. But it is the nomad who learns to trust God completely.

This is the journey I am in. It's not a journey I took willingly, and it is not one that I am enjoying, but I understand that God has decided this is necessary, and I trust him more than I fear this journey, so I will continue following him on this journey for as long as I must.