Where Do We Go from Here?

Our destination was the Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The question was how to get there.

My eyes were focused on my iPhone. Our hostess was going by memory, having spent the summer in the Berkshires for many years. My wife had the tourist map in her hands. I kept saying we'd never get there if we kept going the way we were heading. My wife kept insisting that it was straight ahead.

It turned out that she was correct. If they had followed me, we would have gotten somewhere, but it wouldn't have been the place we wanted to be!

Whether we use Google, a printed map, or our intuition, two questions are critical to every trip we take: Where are we now? and Where are we going? Where we begin determines how we get to where we want to be.

The same principle holds true for the spiritual journey in our relationship with God. The sheer pace of change around us can create a sense of personal and spiritual whiplash. The confusing and sometimes conflicted directional signs that we depended on in the past can leave us wondering if the path we are following in the present will get us where we want to be in the future. The nonstop chatter of the noisy world around us can drown out the deepest voice within us.

We need an inner compass that is fixed on "true north" to guide us through the unexpected twists and turns of our lives—a spiritual GPS to keep us on the right path. For people of biblical faith, the whole story of God's relationship with the creation in Scripture becomes the map we follow. As Christian disciples, we find our "true north" in the words, will, and way of Jesus Christ. His life, death, and resurrection set our course for the abundant life he promised. Like the voice in the GPS that redirects us when we turn in the wrong direction, the Holy Spirit becomes the inner voice that redirects us when we drift away from the path.

Where the Journey Begins

One of my pastoral mentors liked to say that none of us wants to begin where we are; we would rather begin where we would be if we had started when we should have. But there's no way around it. We have to begin where we are, bringing with us all the doubts, questions, fears, and hopes that emerge out of the experiences that have shaped our lives to that point. Then, somewhere along the way ...

• We hear Jesus offer the invitation, "Follow me." Like his first disciples, we may not know where this journey will take us, but we trust that he knows the way better than we do.

• We commit all that we know of ourselves to all that we know of Christ in the confidence that as we get to know both ourselves and the One we are following more deeply, our commitment will continue to grow until the life that became flesh in Jesus becomes a living reality in us.

• We experience God's forgiveness and grace through repentance and begin a new life in Christ by faith.

• We enter into a way of discipleship that is rooted in Scripture and defined by the way, truth, and life revealed in Jesus.

• We are born anew into a community of disciples for whom the cross and the Resurrection become the ongoing metaphor of dying and being raised with Christ.

• We experience the power of the Holy Spirit as we practice the essential disciplines by which we actually become people who love God and love others.

• We become the agents of God's kingdom becoming a tangible reality in this world.

• We look forward with confident hope to the fulfillment of God's saving purpose when God's kingdom comes and God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

In his own spiritual journey, Benjamin Ingham was searching for practical direction in living the holy life when he made his way to John Wesley's apartment in the spring of 1734. John Robson joined them for breakfast, during which Wesley recommended that Ingham and Robson begin meeting together once a week to study Scripture, to encourage each other's faith, to hold each other accountable to their spiritual disciplines, and to serve the needs of the poor. He also taught them to keep a daily journal of their discipleship.

The experience of those students became the starting point for a spiritual awakening that swept across England and launched a movement that would lead to ministry and mission around the globe. But it all began in the hearts of a few people who longed for a deeper, more transformative relationship with Jesus Christ.

My discipleship journey began before I can remember. Like John Wesley, who was nurtured in the faith by his parents, and Timothy, who received the faith from his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5-6), I was born into a deeply committed Christian home with parents who encouraged my childhood faith. While there were many times in different places when I responded to the invitation to follow Christ, some of the most formative were at summer youth camp. Each evening we would hike up a grass-covered, central Pennsylvania hillside called Vesper Hill for evening worship. I don't remember a word that was preached, but I remember the way each service ended. After a time of silent reflection, we would fold up our blankets and hike back down the hill, singing, "Follow, I will follow Thee, my Lord, / Follow ev'ry passing day."

I've been following him ever since.

I've discovered that every disciple has a unique story of the way his or her journey began. There is no one-size-fits-all pattern. Though some stories are similar, none is quite the same as any other. They are not unlike the unique stories married couples tell about how they met and fell in love. The evidence is that the Spirit of God is amazingly patient and infinitely creative in finding ways to enter into our lives and call us into the life of discipleship.

This should not come as a surprise. Look at the amazing variety of ways people in the New Testament experienced Christ:

• Shepherds heard the good news in the blazing light of angels.

• Wise men found the Christ child at the end of a long and arduous search.

• Fishermen met Jesus while working their nets.

• Nathaniel discovered that Jesus knew him long before he knew Jesus.

• Matthew met Jesus while collecting taxes, and a house full of tax collectors and sinners met Jesus at a dinner party in Matthew's house.

• Mary and Martha encountered him in the comfort of their home.

• A centurion at the cross realized that Jesus is the Son of God by watching him die.

• Mary Magdalene mistook him for a gardener at the tomb.

• Saul was blinded by his presence on the Damascus Road.

• Timothy learned of Christ from his mother and grandmother.

The gospel is the story of how ordinary people in ordinary places discovered the extraordinary presence of Jesus and rose up to follow him.

For Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), following Jesus meant leaving a career as a musician, theologian, and philosopher to serve as a medical doctor in...