How's Your Trip So Far?

Our Trip to Winnipeg & Back to see family

- Traveled 3500 miles

- Stop every 2 hours for fluid management, de-cramping

- Route changes for sightseeing & detours

Question most asked when we got back from Canada

- How was your trip?

My question this morning, How's Your Trip So Far

We can start out one place in life and end up somewhere entirely different. You can start out one way and end up another

Travelers in Scripture

• Adam & Eve

• Noah

• Abraham

• Jacob

• Joseph

• Israel - Lasted 40 yr.

NT journeys

• Mary & Joseph From friends of Nazareth to a stable in Bethlehem

• Paul's missionary Journeys

Most mysterious Journey was Jesus - From glory to the cross

1. Purpose For The Trip

- To reach the goal

- Visit the family

- A focus each day

- Hotels were picked

Our route was all planned out - Straight west then straight north

A rare twin tornadoes that spun through Pliger Nebraska on Monday night wiped out the town's business district, obliterated its fire station and ground 40 or 50 homes into rubble. 2 people were killed. Plus intense flooding through the mid west

It was not to cancel but re-route

We changed the route through Michigan

- Why are you alive?

- Does my life matter?

Philippians 3:13–14 (AV)

— 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus

2. Pack What You Need

- Get rid of excess baggage

- Stuff slows the progress & hinders the trip

- Baggage we need to get rid of

- Bitterness, Pain, Guilt, Sin

Isaiah 55:6–7 (AV)

— 6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon

- Note the verbs - Seek, Call, Forsake (his way, his thoughts). Return

- Promise - He will have mercy, He will abundantly pardon

3. Expect The Unexpected

- Life inevitably throws us curve balls

- No matter what don't quit

Let’s say you had to walk three blocks to collect a million dollars left to you in a will. Suppose you stubbed your toe during the first block. Would you conclude the trip was too long and hard because you still had two blocks to go and could stub your toe again? Of course not. Your primary focus would be on the end of your journey, not on the journey itself.

Where is your focus? Are you primarily concerned with the next obstacle or are you fixing your eyes on an eternity without obstacles?

To worry habitually about all the troubles to come in life is much like fearing you will get a paper-cut while opening a Christmas gift from a loved one. The journey is brief, a flash of light. But there is no end of the end of the journey! There is no end of rest, no end of joy!

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

— For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope

4. Flexibility & Patience Is Necessary

- Prairie Grass survives a hurricane better than the tree

- It bends with the wind

- Going back roads we were blocked with bridges being out

- Inflexible would still be their waiting

Genesis 24:27

— And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master's brethren.

Philippians 3:13–14 (AV)

— 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus

How is your trip so far?