Are We There Yet?

I am not sure if this is exactly what Elijah wanted to hear when he was awakened by the Lord from his nap the second time:

Get up and eat some more, for you’ve got a long journey ahead of you.

A long journey?!!! Still ahead? You gotta be kidding me, Lord! Hasn’t it already been long enough? Three and a half years of drought? From the brook of Cherith to Zarephath of Sidon to Samaria to Mt Carmel? And now in this wilderness?!!!

Haven’t there been enough miracles? The pizza delivery ravens? The unending bowl of flower? The ever-flowing bottle of canola oil? The dead boy brought back to life?!! The amazing fire works display on Mt Carmel? Enough fear? Enough loneliness?

I thought I was done, Lord. It’s enough. I am not sure I am ready for a long journey still ahead…

But the life of faith is not a sprint.  

It’s a marathon. 

Or, in the words of Eugene Peterson - which he surprisingly (or not!) quote from Friedrich Nietzsche - A Long Obedience in the Same Direction . 

This might be one of the hardest truths to grasp for an instant-gratification generation that is used to getting what it wants when it wants it.  The noise and clamor accustomed people who can't stand the solitude and silence. So, in our spiritual life we become conditioned to seek one top-of-the-mountain experience after another.  

We want one top-of-the-mountain experience after another. 

Never truly descending into the valley.  Never truly going away by ourselves a day’s journey into the wilderness, never truly facing the frayed end of ourselves. Never really reaching the place where the word of the Lord is as hard as rock under our head. 

But where we also find that the food He feeds us is sufficient nourishment indeed for the long journey still ahead of us.