Circle of Hope

It’s been about a month now, that I have been on sabbatical. Thanks again for sending me. The long sabbath feels good. I’m resting, I’m healthier, and I’ve learned and loved a lot. The long sabbath is a good thing that should make me better able to return to what God has given me to do — it is hard to know what to do if one doesn’t do, too.

Now Gwen and I are about ready to take off on our month-long pilgrimage to commune with the missionary monks of the 4^th-9^th centuries, along with some other striking Christian examples from the past and present, in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

The other day I was going over the itinerary I had planned for us, cleaning up the final details, and I discovered that the room I thought I had booked in Winchester (the beginning of the famous road to Canterbury) was actually about a hundred miles away in Aylesford! Hmmm. I began to wonder how many other connections had been missed!

The mistake was easy to correct. I got a further room in Winchester and asked the brethren in Aylesford to let me come for one night, not two. As it turns out, unbeknownst to me (they say things like that over there, I’m already beginning to talk like Reepicheep), the Aylesford Priory, where I had booked the mistaken room, is actually a traditional stopping place for pilgrims on the way from Winchester to Canterbury. And that is just what I intend to be!

I suppose the trip just may go that way. I can’t control things too well. I don’t know everything. I can’t do everything right. And the destination is still better than I expected. It is always like this: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). Of course, I don’t think I am a robot waiting for God to activate me by remote control! But I do think I explore far too little of how God determines the steps of a person who isn’t quite sure where the journey is going to end up. I need to trust God first and ask questions later. I want to know more about how to walk by faith, not just by sight. That’s pilgrimage and that’s life.

I’ll tell you about things via my MySpace blog from here and there. I hope you’ll look in from time to time. But we’ll probably be just as connected if we are both on our journeys, listening and looking for God, seeing what the Lord has next and receiving it, expected or not — even suffering or not, with hope.