Vacations
by Nate Benard, CMDA Atlanta Area Director
As a kid, I especially loved vacations, and Disney World was the Vacation Mecca!
I did not care where we were going on vacation, just as long as we were going. I remember being excited for weeks prior and telling my friends about where we were going. I can remember getting into the car for a 10-hour ride (my dad drove the posted speed limit always!), and still being excited. We did not have any electronic entertainment in our car. We could not watch movies as we traveled. We only had an AM radio, which I had no idea if it worked or not because my dad never turned it on, yet my excitement did not waiver.
On this particular trip, I recall an accident or something on the interstate that resulted in us sitting still for about an hour. A couple of hours after we started moving again, we encountered torrential rains that were so bad, that today you would expect to see the Weather Channel doing a live broadcast. This required my father to drive even slower than he normally did with the wipers on high. We could barely see other cars on the road, and my mother was nervous. Then when we were about an hour from our hotel, we got a flat tire and my father had to unload our luggage on the side of the road to get to the spare and then change the tire. None of this did anything to discourage me because I was so focused on where we were headed, our destination.
I kept asking my dad, “How much longer?” not because I was in misery and just wanted to get out of the car, but because I could not wait to get to our vacation destination.
I am sure we can all relate to this from our similar experiences as kids or we have seen this excitement in our kids perhaps.
As children of God, we are clearly on a journey. Sometimes we are traveling down scenic roads and our trip is easy – great jobs, children excelling, healthy family, etc. Other times, we are traveling through storms that are so bad you may not think you will not survive – maybe the loss of a child, a cancer diagnosis, a divorce, personal bankruptcy, etc. Sometimes it seems the car just breaks down, and you are stuck – maybe you start to question God and you quit attending church, maybe you are overwhelmed with regret or dissatisfaction. Maybe you get frustrated because happiness in life seems to take so much work. In this broken world, life is hard. Life seems even harder because of our myopic view of our present reality. We often feel so defeated when we experience a “flat tire” in life. Flat tires in life present themselves as unexpected events that temporarily stop our journey. Many will linger in grief over the “flat tire” and may turn to alcohol, drugs, food, etc., instead of turning to God and changing the tire as quickly as possible to get back on the road to their destination.
It is too bad that as children of God on a journey in which He is leading us, we tend to lose sight of our destination – eternity with Him in Heaven. Look what Jesus tells His disciples in John 14.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Try not to get too distracted by things that are uncomfortable parts of the journey, like COVID and politics. They are temporary and will be in the rearview mirror soon enough. Stay focused on the destination!
Our journey is not our destination.
Continuing to stay close to Christ and focusing on our final destination is our greatest hope for a peaceful journey to our destination.
When on your journey, God is better than AAA.
God is always with us.
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble (Psalm 46.1).
Only God can protect us from disaster.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed (Psalm 57.1).
God charges our batteries daily.
It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).
Membership is free, it never expires and you can give it as a free gift to others.
I hope you enjoy your journey!
Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash
