This month at Morgantown Community Church we’ve been talking about our mission as a church, which is…
“…to empower people to take the next step on their journey with Christ.”
This idea of journey–that faith is not about a single experience, but a life lived in continual growth toward God–is becoming more and more central to our community. I ran upon a quote by the great 20th century Jewish rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel that really speaks to the importance of embracing the journey:
“For faith is not clinging to a shrine, but an endless pilgrimage of the heart, audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind–those are all a drive toward serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell.”
Faith, Heschel says, is ‘an endless pilgrimage of the heart.’ In a world of 30-minute sitcoms where everything can be resolved on the spot, where things that are quick and easy are prized…this concept of pilgrimage, of journey, sounds foreign. Yet, it is the only true path to transformation, to becoming the people we were really intended to be.
It may not be easy, or marketable, or sexy…but it’s where the life is.
May we embrace the journey, the pilgrimage toward God–toward the people we were intended and created to be. May we remember that quick and easy is a fad, and that all that stands the test of time is the transformation that happens in us over a lifetime of surrender to the God who made us.
Here’s to the road ahead–full of unknowns, twists and turns, growth and possibility.
Grace and peace.
Josh Scott 