Blow my mind, God!

I saw this post today that simply stated: "Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations." The quote belongs to Zig Zigler and ends with, "The best is yet to come." This thought captured my mind for just a few moments. Why? Some of us are on the most difficult road of our lives right now, while others of us are enjoying our destination! Why is it that we cannot all enjoy the destination without the difficult roads? I think there is much to be learned in the journey, complete with all the twists and turns, perilous drop-offs, and even those rutted paths that seem to jostle our fillings loose! That said, perhaps the journey may be equally as important as the destination!

He gives strength to the weak. And He gives power to him who has little strength. Even very young men get tired and become weak and strong young men trip and fall. But they who wait upon the Lord will get new strength. They will rise up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weak. (Isaiah 40:9-31)

The moments on the journey are riddled with all kinds of doubts, though. We don't know for sure that we are headed in the right direction when all we see is the winding roads and rutted paths. We might think we are, but until we begin to see the promise of the destination in our view, we have those low points when we begin to allow our doubts to work against us. Doubts are some of our worst enemies, aren't they? Our mind has a way of turning even the smallest of 'niggling fears' into the biggest honking worries ever! How is it that we cannot control our thoughts - letting them get blown way our of proportion? It may be we are listening too closely to our own 'advice' and 'fears' and not close enough to the voice of the one guiding our journey!

The best is yet to come - perhaps this needs to dominate our thoughts today. There are those of us who think our 'best' is behind us, but if we are serving Christ Jesus, the best is always before us! There is nothing in our 'rear-view mirror' that will ever measure up to what God has awaiting us right around the bend. Yes, the journey may be hard, but the reward will outweigh the hardships we endure along the way. I remember being pregnant and thinking this living thing inside of me was about to eat me alive. There never seemed to be enough sleep, I couldn't get close enough to a restroom to keep my bladder safe from those attacking kicks, and my food intake seemed to be going to support the life of another, not me.

The thing 'growing inside of me' was truthfully demanding a whole lot of me, wasn't it? As God begins to 'grow things inside of us' spiritually, there seems to be a lot of demands that come with that life being produced. It isn't unusual for us to doubt we want to see it through - in fact, it is quite commonplace to want to throw in the towel along the way! The further we get along in the journey, the harder it is to turn back, though. The distance between where we are today and where we'd need to go in order to 'go back' isn't worth it. The distance between where we are today and where we are going to be once we reach our destination is, but I am not the one who needs to convince you of that. God is! He isn't going to demand you take a journey that leads to 'nowhere', so trust him for the journey's end. If you ride it out, the enjoyment of what he has for you might just blow your mind. Just sayin!