The Meaning of the Journey

“There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On a recent literature distribution trip into a restricted access Southeast Asian country our XMA team sat down with our career missionary host for debriefing at the end of the week.  After we reported where we had gone and about our encounters with the people our host shared this story about how we never know the full impact of our obedience to God’s call;

Several years ago Jim, one of the missionaries living in this country, went out into the rural areas distributing Gospel materials one day.  On his train ride back into the city Jim discovered he still had one piece of literature in his pocket.  Concerned that he might get caught with it at a security checkpoint he inconspicuously slipped it into the seatback pocket as he disembarked the train.

A few years later Jim met an older, highly respected monk who had come to know Christ and asked him how he had heard the Gospel.  The monk shared how he began to develop an insatiable desire for the ultimate truth.  His quest for truth took him many places around the country.  During a train ride one day he discovered an old torn pamphlet in the seat pocket.  There was only half of a page left but as he read it he realized in his heart that this was the Truth he had been searching for.  Now his quest took on a new twist as he began asking everyone if they knew anything about this pamphlet and where he might learn more.  His search eventually led him to some national believers who helped the old monk learn the rest of the story and to accept Christ.

And so it is with our recent journey and every XMA trip.  We will never know what the Lord does with His Word that we gave out, with our prayers for the people as we looked into their eyes, with our sacrifice of service to the King.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote shortly before his martyrdom, “There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler”.

God has called us to “Go into all the world…”.  The results of our journeys are not up to us and, in many cases, will never be known by us, the travelers, but we trust that God will bless His Word and use our small sacrifice for His glory.

Meditation from seat 56C

Like a migrating goose instinctively drawn back to the place of his birth I’m floating effortlessly on the Jetstream that is once again taking me back home.  I’m in seat 56C, as I have been for over 10 hours, of a very full Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to LAX when my monkish craving for solitude wells up.  This now familiar feeling is not simply a need for space, a need to get away from the 257 other people sharing this much too small a space with me.  It’s more of a yearning for that special aloneness with God. 

But as I struggle to center my focus on him I’m distracted by the little seatback entertainment systems flickering all around the darkened cabin like fireflies on a summer night.  Mine is turned off but my travel-weary eyes and mind keep wandering around the cabin.  I catch myself watching the chick flick with the lady in 55B and then the martial arts movie two rows up and across the aisle.

As I try the meditation technic of focusing on an object directly in front of me I notice my reflection in my blacked-out screen and chase a muse on the verse, “For now we see dimly in mirror, but then face to face.”  Finally my eyes and then my mind lock onto the small power button at the bottom of the monitor.  A very fitting focal point for my meditation since God is the source of my power and my life.  He breathes his power into me through his word, through the Holy Spirit, through his very presence in my life.  It is only through him that I’m able to do anything or that I even exist. 

In his hand is the life of every living thing,

And the breath of every human being.

   —Job 12:10

After calming my thoughts and my soul with this centering prayer for a few moments I notice the indicium on the power button is blemished, disfigured, worn from too many restless fingers fidgeting away the hours on innumerable long flights.  How appropriate?  Just as my Lord Jesus was marred and disfigured for me, for you, for the world so this button suffers damage so that others might experience what lies beyond the damage.