Joy in the Journey

There is a song written by Michael Card, one of my all time favorites, called "Joy in the Journey." I'll try to share some of the lyrics, from memory:

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love along the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey

Forget not the hope that's before you
And never stop counting the cost
Remember the hopelessness when you were lost
There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love along the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey

This song is on my mind this morning as I find myself experiencing once again that peace and joy that passes all understanding. We should feel anxious, homesick and at the very least weary from our four months here. But this morning as we walked to school in the whipping, cold wind, hand in hand I felt the Joy in the Journey.

When you taste that joy, you never want to go back to the substitute joy with which you used to sustain yourself. With everything different: food, friends, language, climate, culture, expectations, school and work life...you find yourself perhaps more conscious of how those things used to fill you up. So much so sometimes that it's easy to forget Him...or at least allow Him to fall low on the priority list.

Don't misunderstand me...the same thing happens when you dive headlong into a new culture as a family of 7. In the struggling to find who you are and where you can fit here... at first you cling moment by moment to faith but soon it's easy to forget that He is the author, the Definer of who we are. We found that around 2.5-3 months we hit a really difficult time with our priorities. We found it to be increasingly difficult to meet with Him each day. This is disastrous.

Thankfully, upon correcting ourselves and getting back into closer fellowship, we are left with this awareness:

Everything has changed...and yet what really matters has not.

Our Sustainer never changes...He is constant.

So here we are, in the midst of challenge and change and we feel deep, zealous joy. The kind of joy that will not fade away when we go to the market tonight and crowds of people gather around to stare, touch and question us; even though we're tired. The kind of joy that comforts and heals our broken hearts when we feel the ache of home and of missing loved ones. The kind of joy that brings focus and purpose into your life when you've chosen to obey...though it defies reason.

There is a "wonder and wildness to life" as the song lyric says...but I didn't much feel the wonder and certainly not wildness before we let go of what we knew to embrace what we live now. Everyday we experience wonder...and everyday wildness...the greatest adventure we've ever known.

And freedom...much we could write about freedom. As there are so many financial worries, political dreams and nightmares and uncertainty about the future...we read the news...but we feel free. For we know, we have experienced, His hand holding us and sustaining us far outside of our ability to make it work on our own. We have found Him faithful in all things we've entrusted to Him.

So no matter what the future brings...we have freedom...as long as we are in obedience...we have confidence not in ourselves and our finances, but in Him and His economy which promises that we will always have what we need.

...forget not the hope that's before you...

There is Joy in this journey...