Life is not a place, it's a journey

For me that’s the joy of seeing life as a journey and not a place. If we see life as a place, something static, then when things get tough, when problems arise, it’s much harder to cope than it need be.

But since the landscape of life is ever changing, difficulties will appear in an entirely different light when we see each day as a stage in the broad sweep of life.

That great American icon of positive thinking; Norman Vincent Peale once told of a friend who cried to him; ‘Why do I have so many problems?’ He told his friend that he could take him to a precinct in his home town of New York where there were more than a 150,000 who between them had not a single problem. ‘For them, life’s fitful fever is over,’ he said. ‘They rest from their labours.’

‘O lead me there,’ said his friend. ‘Lead me there.’

‘OK,’ said Peale. ‘It’s the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. They are dead.’

He went on to make the point that problems constitute a sign of life. ‘

‘If you’re here tonight,’ he roared from his pulpit, ‘and you have no problems, I urge you, go home. Don’t stop until you get there. Go to your bedroom. Lock the door. Get down on your knees and cry out to the Lord; “What’s the matter Lord? Don’t you trust me anymore? Give me some problems!”’

But how can that be if our problems are a punishment, sent by God because our sexuality is questionable, or we’re not good with money, or we eat too much, or we don’t spend enough time with our loved ones? Well, I cannot believe that God punishes us for the times when we stray, and for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, nowhere in the New Testament are we told that he does. Training is spoken about, as is chastisement, and discipline, because we need to be changed, he loves us far too much to leave us as we are.

And secondly, while we are told that ‘God is a God of justice,’ how can he be just if he punished Jesus for our wrongs, and then punished us as well? Doesn’t add up, does it?

So, if there’s a link between our lifestyle and our problems, it’s cause and effect. In other words, if you drink a bottle of whiskey a day for 20 years, don’t blame God for your liver cirrhosis! And if you push your wife around, call her names in public, humiliate her, afford her no dignity, some day if she’s any sense you’ll wake up one morning alone – you reap what you sow.

But what about those times when life’s burden is just too heavy, when positive thinking isn’t enough? I can tell you that in some of the ragged corners of my life I have retreated into Psalm 91 and found comfort there; ‘I will be with you in trouble. I will deliver you, and honour you. With long life I will satisfy you and show you my salvation.’