Where Is Everyone Going? (06/28/2025)

I’ve been staying in a hotel in Sioux City for the past several days. I traveled there to visit my mother and family that are still in the area.  Last evening, when it was getting close to the end of the day, I went outside the hotel to the garden area and sat for a bit, as is my habit. I was trying to focus my reflection on my day, but as I was trying, people just kept arriving. The parking lot just beyond the garden area was almost completely full. I watched for a few minutes and wondered where everyone was going.

I don’t intentionally ease drop, but I am also not completely deaf. I hear things. I know from my time passing through the lobby that some are here for a wedding, some are on vacation, some are traveling further on for work, some are here for a concert, and there was one family that is here for a funeral. One lady I met in the garden is here visiting her children and grandchildren who still live here. She retired to Arizona.

Life is like this hotel. While we share space and time, we aren’t all headed in the same direction nor are we all focused on the same thing. Most spaces in our world are occupied by a host of individuals with different backgrounds, different reasons for being in that spot at that time and heading to different places. But we are often joined together by our common needs. The folks in my hotel are here for the same reason as me: we all need a place to lay our heads for the night.

And I wondered if anyone other than me recognized that while we come from different places and for different reasons, ultimately, we all share a common need, we all need our LORD’s love.  And we are all called to make our way to the same place – life with our LORD – life in abundance. We are all called to come home to the LORD.  What would happen in our world if we all realized that we share a destination and a host.

And I found myself sitting in the garden area for the longest time asking myself the question, “Where am I going?”  Sometimes, I guess, it takes a trip away from my comfort zone to get me to think outside my habits. I am on a journey, for sure. Where am I going? How about you? Where are you going? Is the LORD our travel companion? Is the LORD our destination? Will we keep one another company along the journey? Will we meet one another at our journey's end?

It’s worth considering. Until tomorrow, let us all love well.