Maybe the Destination Was Never the Whole Point

What if the years between the promise and its fulfillment aren’t wasted? A reflection on knowing God, trusting the journey, and discovering relationship along the way.

I have spent a lot of time wondering when we are going to get there.

I don’t even know exactly where there is anymore.

There are things God has spoken over our family that we still believe.

Dreams that have lived in us for years.

Promises we have carried through moves and losses and unexpected turns.

There are things I thought would have happened by now.

And there have been plenty of moments during our years in Tennessee when I have looked at God and wondered:

What are we doing here?

Not because nothing has happened here.

A lot has happened here.

But because sometimes I have looked at our circumstances and wondered how any of this could possibly be getting us closer to where I thought we were going.

And then I started reading Abraham’s story again.

Not looking for a formula this time.

Just watching a man learn God.

And suddenly I wondered if I have misunderstood something about the journey.

Maybe the destination was never the whole point.

I Will Show You

When God first speaks to Abram, He doesn’t give him much of a plan.

He tells him to leave.

Leave his country.

Leave his people.

Leave his father’s household.

And go—

“to the land I will show you.”

Not Here is the map.

Not Here is what the next twenty-five years will look like.

Not Here is how I am going to accomplish everything I am about to promise you.

Just:

Go.

And then God begins saying:

I will.

I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you.

I will make your name great.

I will bless those who bless you.

I will bless the families of the earth through you.

God seems remarkably confident about something Abram cannot possibly know how to accomplish.

Especially because Abram has a rather significant problem.

His wife is barren.

God has just promised to make a great nation out of a man whose wife cannot have children.

And God doesn’t explain that part yet.

Abram simply begins walking.

I Think I Have Read Abraham Backwards

I know too much when I read Abraham’s story.

I know about Isaac.

I know about the covenant.

I know about the stars.

I know about the ram.

I know that eventually Abraham will be called the father of faith.

So I can unconsciously read Genesis as though Abraham knows all of that too.

He doesn’t.

He receives God in pieces.

A word here.

A promise there.

An encounter.

A famine.

A mistake.

A rescue.

Another word.

More waiting.

Another encounter.

More revelation.

Years pass.

And slowly, Abram isn’t merely learning what God is going to do.

He’s learning who God is.

That stopped me.

Because I wonder if I have spent so much time asking God where He is taking us that I have missed some of what He has been doing while we walk.

A Marriage Isn’t a Roadmap

Maybe marriage is the closest comparison I have.

When Troy and I got married, we didn’t receive a roadmap for our marriage.

There wasn’t a binder waiting for us after the wedding:

When this happens, do this.

When you run out of money, turn to page 37.

When one of you misunderstands the other, follow these six steps.

When you’re deciding whether to move across the country, see Appendix B.

That would certainly have made some things easier.

But it wouldn’t have created a marriage.

We learned each other by living together.

We learned each other while paying bills.

While having babies.

While losing things.

While moving.

While disagreeing.

While laughing until we couldn’t breathe.

While hurting each other.

While forgiving.

While making decisions we weren’t sure about.

While changing.

While finding each other again.

After almost thirty years, I know Troy in ways I could not possibly have known him when I stood across from him and made a covenant.

Not because someone gave me better instructions.

Because we have shared a life.

And suddenly I wondered:

Why would I expect relationship with God to work differently?

Maybe Christianity Has Made Relationship Into a System

I think sometimes we are so afraid of getting God’s will wrong that we try to turn relationship into instructions.

We want principles.

Steps.

Keys.

Biblical patterns.

Tell me what Abraham did.

Tell me what Joseph did.

Tell me what Elijah did.

Tell me the verse I need to stand on.

Tell me how to know I’ve heard correctly.

Tell me what I need to do so that the thing God promised will happen.

And there are beautiful things to learn from all of their stories.

But what if Scripture isn’t primarily handing me a collection of formulas?

What if it is letting me watch people know God?

Abraham learns Him.

Moses learns Him.

David learns Him.

Peter learns Him.

They misunderstand Him sometimes.

They become afraid.

They run ahead.

They hesitate.

They ask questions.

They argue.

They obey.

They fail.

They come back.

And through all of it, God keeps revealing Himself.

That sounds a lot more like relationship than a system.

And Then I Looked at Tennessee Differently

For years, I have wanted to understand what this season was for.

I have wanted to be able to look at it and say:

Oh. That’s why.

Maybe someday I will.

But suddenly I can see something I couldn’t see before.

We know Him differently now.

Not because everything has gone well.

In many ways, because it hasn’t.

We have had to learn what we believe about God’s goodness when circumstances don’t look good.

We have had to learn what happens inside us when provision feels scarce.

We have had to recognize how quickly fear makes us want to control.

We have had to confront our formulas.

We have had to let go of things we thought faith was supposed to look like.

We have had to ask whether trusting God means doing nothing—or whether we can act and still remain.

We have had to learn that a closed door doesn’t necessarily mean abandonment.

That an open door isn’t necessarily a promise.

That waiting isn’t necessarily punishment.

That difficulty doesn’t automatically mean we missed God.

And that His silence doesn’t mean His absence.

I don’t think I could have learned those things from a book.

I had to live them with Him.

And suddenly these years don’t look empty.

They don’t look like the blank space between where we were and where we’re going.

There has been a relationship growing here.

What If This Is Part of the Promise?

That thought has changed something in me.

Because I still believe there are things ahead.

I still have dreams.

I still have promises I carry.

I still want to see things God has spoken become tangible.

I am not pretending the destination doesn’t matter.

Canaan mattered.

Isaac mattered.

The covenant mattered.

The promise mattered.

God wasn’t dangling a destination in front of Abraham just to teach him spiritual lessons along the way.

He intended to keep His word.

But Abraham would not arrive as the same man who left Ur.

And maybe that’s part of it.

The God who said,

“I will show you,”

wasn’t only showing Abraham a land.

He was showing Abraham Himself.

Not all at once.

Over a lifetime.

The Promise Was Never Meant to Replace the Promiser

Maybe that’s one of the dangers of carrying a promise for a long time.

Without realizing it, I can become more focused on seeing the promise fulfilled than on knowing the One who made it.

When will we get there?

When will this change?

When will the provision come?

When will the door open?

When will this finally make sense?

And perhaps God is not irritated by those questions.

Abraham asked questions too.

But somewhere along the way, something deeper is being formed:

I know You.

I know Your voice better than I used to.

I know Your kindness in places where I once assumed You were withholding.

I know I can be disappointed and still move toward You.

I know I can ask questions without losing You.

I know I can misunderstand You and You can correct me.

I know I can become afraid and You don’t abandon the covenant.

I know I don’t have to hold everything together for You.

I know You differently because we have walked this road together.

And that is not nothing.

That might actually be one of the greatest things this road could give me.

I Thought We Were Waiting

Maybe that’s what I’m seeing differently today.

I thought we were waiting for God to do something.

Maybe He has been doing something all along.

Not instead of the promises.

Not as a spiritual consolation prize because they aren’t going to happen.

But inside the journey toward them.

We have been learning Him.

And He has been teaching us how to walk with Him without a map.

How to receive without grasping.

How to move without becoming our own source.

How to wait without assuming we have been forgotten.

How to live inside an unfinished story without demanding to know the ending.

Maybe someday I will look back and understand why Tennessee was part of the route.

Maybe I won’t understand all of it.

But I know something now that I didn’t know when we arrived.

The years it takes to reach the promise are not wasted years.

Because the destination was never the whole point.

The relationship was happening on the way.

And perhaps someday, when we finally stand in some places we’ve dreamed about for years, I’ll realize that the greatest thing God gave us on the road wasn’t simply that He got us there.

It was that, somewhere along the way, we learned to know the One we were walking with.

In everything you do -eat, play, and love- may it always be seasoned with Joy!