Knowing Our Destination (03/08/2023)

Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

Alice: “I don’t much care where.”

Cheshire Cat: “Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.”

Alice: “So long as I get somewhere.”

Cheshire Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.”

This dialogue between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland should give us pause, we Christians. Actually, it should give every human pause. Where are we headed? Where do we want to end up at the end? What is our destination?

I’m not sure about everyone. I can only answer for myself. I want to spend eternity which I believe exists for the human soul in the loving presence of the LORD. And so, it makes sense to me that in order to do that for all eternity, I need to start doing that now. That has to be both my point of origin and my destination. Don’t you love the way the LORD writes straight with crooked lines?

Sincerely, love is the answer to our quest, to our journey. And it all starts with genuine love for the LORD. If we seek to be loving people only of people but deny the LORD’s role in all of this we call life, we may be able to achieve “humanitarian of the year,” but we will not reach our destination. The road to our destination begins in our surrender to the LORD, in our acknowledgement of the LORD’s love for us that brought us into being. Our journey begins in the heart of the LORD, and with loving effort will lead us to eternal love. Our journey is about going home to the LORD.

Today’s gospel text (Mark 12) recounts Jesus’ response to a scribe’s question concerning which of the commandments is the greatest. Jesus tells us:  "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." Jesus gives us the map for our journey. We must begin with love of the LORD. If we truly love the LORD we are compelled by that love to love one another, daughters and sons of the LORD, including ourselves.

Where do we want to get to? This is a great Lenten question. This is a great life question. If our answers are to eternal life with the LORD, maybe we need to begin where we want to end. Maybe we need to give ourselves to the LORD understanding that within that relationship are the motivation as well as the grace to make the journey well.

Let us spend time truly reflecting on this essential relationship. How are we doing? What are we doing? What is the LORD seeking to do within us? Are we cooperating? Is this the governing relationship in our lives or is it a merely peripheral relationship at the edges which we rarely visit?

Let us commit to getting this right. Let us commit to the One who brought us into being and to the One to whom we journey. Let us surrender our hearts and minds to the LORD and allow the LORD to guide us this day and all days.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.

Thoughts? Questions? – email katewiskus@gmail.com