I will never be a world traveler. In fact, I’m not much of a traveler at all.
For most of my life, I tried to hide this part of myself. I was ashamed that I wasn’t like “other people”. I would try and push through to go where my peers wanted to go just to try and feel normal. While they were exhilarated by the travel, I was left exhausted.
It’s taken me this long to realize that there are reasons for this difference. My traveling friends don’t take in all the things that I take in. They can easily tune out most of the situations that cause me stress. While I take in strangers’ moods and feelings, and all the smells and sounds and movement around me, they can focus on where they’re going and what they want to do next. It’s a trait I just don’t have.
I used to get dragged all over the place by my adventure-loving husband and I suffered for it. I would even get physically ill (fevers, pain, congestion). I now have learned to put limits on where I’m willing to go. I protect myself and say “no” way more often than I used to. My husband now hops on his Harley and rides all over the United States while I recharge by being alone. I sew, collage, and read to my heart’s content while he’s gone. I need the security and peace my house provides me with.
When we do travel together, I want to hit the highway and get to our destination so I can regroup and enjoy a few new things at a time. He wants to take every side road and “barely a road” he finds. He’ll stretch a four-hour road trip into twelve if I let him.
All this explains how I feel when I read about God’s people “wandering” for forty years in the desert.
When I was young, and reading Exodus for the first time, I was indignant about how fast God’s people lost faith in Him. I mean, seriously, He performed so many miracles on their behalf and they turned around and worshipped a cow instead?! Who does that?
With age, I am more in tune with the voice inside me that asks, “Would you have been any different?”
I’d like to think that I wouldn’t go as far as worshipping a golden calf, but grumble and complain? Oh, I’m right there with the Israelites.
Not all the things God asks us to do will be easy. In fact, some of them will feel impossible, like leaving a known home for an unknown destination. And sadly, even when God was perched in a cloud on the top of a mountain, right in sight of His people, they quickly strayed and demanded an idol instead. I can pretend that I would never do such a thing, but then I look at my own life and see that when put out of my comfort zone, I quickly react with frustration and anger. If God asked me to leave my home and travel into the unknown, how would I react? Without too much introspection, I can see it’s an area I have to work on.
Just as I have grown complacent in the security I find in my own home, I tend to fall into complacency in my faith as well. My faith sometimes feels just like my fuzzy slippers; something I only put on when I’m feeling in need of extra comfort. Is that really the kind of faith I want to have, or do I want to focus on the cloud on the mountaintop and remember the incredible God I have?
God is a perfect Father. He could have brought His people over to the promised land without much sacrifice on their part at all. They could have “hit the highway” and been there in days instead of years, but their lack of faith ruined that plan. He wanted more than a “fuzzy slipper” relationship with His children and that’s the kind of relationship I want with Him as well.
Sometimes that will involve me traveling outside of my comfort zone, but the trip will be so worth it.
“He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Psalm 23: 3-4
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