Sunday. September 11, 2011 was a long awaited beginning to a journey into some open roads in my life. I’ve had a deep longing inside me for as long as I can remember to just get up and go. To get in my car and just go - with no real plan or destination, with no time restraints, but to simply get away from the busyness of life in the city. To get away from the distractions of life, things that I believe weren’t intended for us to fill our time with. It seems like it is a constant struggle to pay bills, so most of our time goes towards making money, leaving us very little free time to focus on real things, real questions. Why are we on this Earth? Have you ever really taken time to ask that? And REALLY thought about it? What am I going to do with the short time I’m here, am I going to make a difference, will it matter at all that I was here? Is my Father and King Jesus going to say “Well done my good and faithful servant” when I see Him face to face for the very first time? So when I lay awake looking at the stars, longing to be in a place where I can actually see them, I usually picture this. I see myself in a small handmade log cabin in the backwoods on a mountainside somewhere. A big stack of freshly cut wood just outside my door. The warm grey smoke of the fire billowing from the top of the chimney. Evergreen trees as tall as the now replaced skyscrapers from my past. My faithful dogs right by my side ready for anything the day might offer. My beard is as burly and my flannel as flannely as ever. I picture this life allowing me time... time to ponder the deep questions instilled inside of me, time to seek God wholly, not partially, but to seek Him with all of my being, what could that even look like? I don’t know if this itch to get away is simply a desire to see this beautiful countryside or something bigger. Is it possibly something inside of me that God planted, something that He wants me to do? Or is it me being scared to stand up to the giants in my life, look them in the face and throw the stone. Is this unending desire to get away or just me wanting to run because I can’t handle the pressure of relationships, bills, parking tickets, the reoccurring bad news of war and natural disasters on the news? Am I just wanting to run from the problems that God has placed me in the midst of? I certainly can’t answer those questions, but I do believe for the first time this desire to travel is based more on positive, healthy reasons than on running away from my problems. My prayer is to grow closer to Him, not to separate myself from people, but to increase my awareness of Jesus in everything, so I can come back to this amazingly complicated concrete mess with a new perspective. With a great strength inside me stemming from peace and gentleness like that of the Towering Evergreen Tree.
