We hear it all the time.
“She’s on her own journey.”
“Well, this is all a part of his journey.”
“God has me on a different journey than you.”
This phrasing about a life “journey” is not in the Bible, unless you’re talking about physically traveling from one place to another.
The well-worn maxim, “your own journey,” originated from American author, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote in his essay, Self-Reliance: “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”
His essay, intended to convince people to avoid conformity, stressed that for one to truly be significant he or she had to follow their own conscience and “do your own thing.”
Emerson was raised in the Universal Unitarian Church and received a degree from the Harvard Divinity School. The Unitarian Universalist denomination deniesl of the doctrine of the fact that God embodies three distinct persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (aka the “Trinity”) and they believe that all human beings gain salvation. According to Universalists, the mere idea someone might go to hell is not compatible with the character of a loving God.
No. Life is not a journey. Life is a destination in that it ultimately will result with either eternal life in heaven, or, well, hell.
Yes, life is a journey, so to speak, along the way, filled with lessons, hardships, heartaches, joys, celebrations, and special moments; but all of those things ultimately lead us to our purpose in life, and our final destination.
The Bible tells us to be heavenly minded, focused on our eternal home: “…seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:1-2 NKJV).
Jesus told us, His followers, to invest in heaven – our destination – when He warned: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Jesus knows that, as humans, whatever we spent our time, money, and effort on will eventually win our hearts.
This is not a random journey, my friend. This is a real-deal destination in progress. Don’t be distracted with the things of this world and thus loose sight of the eternal destination God has for you.
And don’t give in to the “do your own thing” mentality that this present world has embraced.
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