Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/for-those-making-pilgrimage-through-spiritual-landscapes/ 

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I have always loved road trips. Mostly for the view and the scenery. It’s the adventure of discovering different landscapes I love most. That and traversing God’s good creation.

On a recent day off, I took to the road and headed for the mountains. As I navigated the changing grades peppered with sharp curves, I reminisced on the ups and downs, twists and turns I’ve experienced in this spiritual life in Jesus. Winding my way around those blinding curves, not being able to see what lay ahead or when I would reach the summit (or valley), I reflected upon our pilgrimage with the Lord. Much of the journey often seems unforeseen and uncertain.

Life, in general, takes us across various physical terrains which can map onto our spiritual lives. The spiritual journey of disciples crosses many metaphorical landscapes. Metaphors, like those of weather or seasons, help us gain a fuller meaning of the unseen spiritual life. You’ve likely heard it said that we “go through different seasons” and “weather many storms.” For this article, I’m exploring the symbolism of natural landscapes to our spiritual lives.

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“Put me on the next flight. My son needs me.”

In the middle of the 2008 NBA playoffs, Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade received a call no parent wants to get—his 6-year-old son was in trouble. Wade was in the middle of a career-defining series, carrying the weight of his team and an entire city’s hopes. But that call changed everything.

His son, Zaire, had been rushed to the hospital with a medical emergency. Without hesitation, Wade left his team, canceled media appearances, and told the airline: “Put me on the next flight. My son needs me.” He flew home, stayed by Zaire’s bedside, and didn’t leave until he was stable. Then he quietly returned to the court, picked up where he left off, and didn’t make a big deal of it in the press.

Later, when asked about it, Wade simply said, “Basketball is what I do. But being a dad—that’s who I am.”

Most of us won’t even decline a work call—let alone drop everything—to show up for our family. What are the moments that matter most to your kids? And what are you willing to do to be there? We say family is our top priority—but would our calendars, texts, and screen time agree?

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Early on in ministry, one of my pastors sat me down to have a heart-to-heart about entering ministry. In this long conversation, my pastor imparted much of his own personal experiences into me. He shared about his ups and downs in ministry, his best learnings from years of experience, and his joy to continue to serve. Often this talk comes back to me during a ministry season, but one truth still rings the loudest from this. In one moment of the talk, he looked me square in the eyes and declared, “There are no lone rangers when it comes to ministry.” Essentially what my pastor was saying was that ministry was not meant to be done alone.

When we are engaged in the eternal battle of ministry, we can often face decisions, situations, and places that can be very taxing on our soul. The “dark night” of the soul can keep us awake at night as we reflect on the questions of “What if?” “Did I do the right thing?” or “Could I have said this better?” We all have that nasty message in our inbox, that person that only sees the things that we are doing wrong, and even those meetings that seem to suck the life out of our soul. It is for this reason that the words of my pastor ring so true for us all. No one should carry the weight of ministry on their own.

From the start of creation, even within the Godhead himself, we see that community is a central theme of God.

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Spend more than a few weeks in the heart of a church and you discover that church is messy.

I can see it in the face of first-timers, that look of, “Wow, this is what we’ve been looking for!” You know, that euphoric, honeymoon, shiny-new-car feeling. “We finally found a clean, tidied-up, everyone-loves-each-other, there-are-no-problems church.”

Then two months later, their faces look different. The shine has worn off. The realization came: “This is a messy church.”

But even Paul had to deal with messy churches. No church is perfect, and if it’s growing and the Spirit is working, it’s messy.

Here are three reasons why church gets messy, and why that’s a good thing.

As a matter of fact, the church is messy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If I were to act like our church were not messy, I would be lying, because I am in it! I might be the messiest person in our church!

I resonate with the apostle Paul when he said:

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” (1 Timothy 1:15, NIV)

The messiness of the church has allowed me to fit right in.

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Christians long for our eternal home in heaven. When we look at the scene of the final judgment in Revelation, we notice that the most important consideration that will determine our eternal destiny is whether our names are written in the lamb’s “book of life.” This is a record of all true Christians, those whose sins have been forgiven by Jesus, described in Revelation 20:12-15 (NIV).

“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. . . . Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”

The next thing God inspired John to write after those words is a description of the destination of those whose names are written in the book of life in Revelation 22:1 (NIV):

“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.”

In this way, God paints a beautiful picture of what eternity will be like for those who have been saved by the grace of Jesus because of their faith in him.

We were created for an eternal relationship with God. Our ultimate hopes, dreams, and desires can only find their true fulfillment in the eternal kingdom with God after death. When the Bible speaks of our lives in eternity after death, it speaks of a glorious existence—a close, intimate relationship with God.

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We know from Genesis that man and woman were formed and shaped by God and given the task to work, tend, and rule creation for God. While they were to rule over the garden for him, it was God who truly ruled. Everything was the way he designed it to be. His will had been done on earth as it was in heaven. I want you to breathe in that last statement and its context. God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven is a key point in understanding (and even witnessing) what the kingdom looks like, for it is what the very reign of God produces.

Author and minister David Young wrote, “The Old Testament was written so that we could understand what the kingdom of God is.”[1] I agree. From Eden to Abraham, from Moses to David, from Isaiah to Malachi, we come face-to-face with the kingdom of God.

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“So do you want to know why you’re an outsider in this world? It’s not because the world is changing or because of a political agenda or because of a leader. It’s because you worship an outsider king who has invited you to glorify and enjoy him by becoming an outsider yourself.”

This is from the opening chapter of Patrick Miller and Keith Simon’s book Joyful Outsiders: Six Ways to Live Like Jesus in a Disorienting Culture. It is tempting for us to think that we are the first generation of “outsiders.” C. S. Lewis coined the phrase “chronological snobbery” to describe the mindset that assumes things have never been better or more enlightened than they are right now.

Many of us are guilty of the inverse side of this snobbery. We struggle to think of a time when things have been worse, especially for the church. The wind of culture is in our face. Church attendance is down. All manner of debauchery is up. Faith, especially the public kind of faith that is anchored in tradition and Scripture, is at times mocked and at other times actively resisted. Even among the faithful, holiness has fallen on hard times, and many are struggling to merely persevere.

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During Jesus’ ministry, great crowds of people gathered around him to listen to his teaching. Some of those in the crowds committed themselves to him and became his disciples. Then, out of those disciples, he appointed twelve apostles. Luke recounts that moment like this:

“Now it was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer with God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles.” (Luke 6:12-13, NASB)

First, we should observe how serious and significant this moment must have been since Jesus prepared for it by spending the entire night in prayer.

Notice also that there is a difference between being a disciple and an apostle. The words are not synonymous or interchangeable. Jesus called all his disciples to himself and chose twelve men out from that larger group to have the specific role as apostles.

What’s an apostle? The word referred to someone sent as an official representative bearing the authority of the one who sent them. So the twelve apostles are official ambassadors of King Jesus who are sent out by Him with his authority. To fulfill this role, the apostles had to be eyewitnesses to Jesus, especially his resurrection (Acts 1:21-22; 1 Corinthians 9:1).

So all the apostles were disciples, but most disciples were not apostles. Only the twelve plus Paul occupied that unique and important position. The uniqueness of their role is seen when they are described as the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:20). The apostles being authorized spokesmen for King Jesus, the church is built on their teaching and ministry.

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How would you answer the question, “So, the Holy Spirit is God, but so is the Father and so is Jesus—and yet there’s one God? How does the Trinity make sense?”

Here’s the answer we’ll explore:

Let’s walk through this answer . . .

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When I was a kid, my dad was a certified instructor for Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, primarily in corporate settings. As a result, nearly every car ride of my childhood was soundtracked by Covey’s measured voice via cassette tape.

One of Covey’s central principles was this: Begin with the end in mind.

It’s a solid rule for business and planning. Most Americans don’t. Retirement gets delayed. College tuition sneaks up. Health is postponed until it can’t be. We drift without design. That’s what Socrates spoke of as the “unexamined life.”

And there is biblical wisdom in that instinct—to begin with a view to the end—but with a crucial difference. In Scripture, the “end” does not originate in our minds. It exists in God’s.

He is the main character of the human story. We are not the authors; we are the supporting cast. Friends and villains alike, we are forever moving across the stage of His purposes.

I think this is an important distinction.

This afternoon, during an online RENEW.org Learning Community event, I heard Dr. Carl Williams of Harding University—co-author with Bobby Harrington of Trust and Follow Jesus—speak on discipleship. (If you’re unfamiliar with this simple, effective, reproducible disciple making guide, order a copy.)

But in Dr. Williams’s presentation, he offered a perspective that lodged in me: focus on making your beginning.

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