The Journey, With God

Movement 1

Road Trip

Nicole and I recently were on a road trip, our son Nic too.

We drove the roughly 35 hours of driving, 2,435 mile trip across the US for AZ to PA, and we did it in 4 days

It’s the 4th time we’ve driven from AZ to PA, so it’s not new.

There’s two routes

This is the first year with 2 cars, added a new dimension

Stops, gas, potty breaks, lunch, oh lunch, all right....

Men vs Women, I’m making generalizations here

Men-for the most part, want to get on the road ASAP, drive as many miles as possible, make the best time as possible, conquer the road, this isn’t a sight seeing, play it by the ear, go with the flow thing

it’s all about time and distance covered, getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible, efficiency, short stops and short breaks, right, but that happen at the same time.

Gas and potty, gas and lunch and potty, and all at least 3 hours apart, drive until a quarter of a tank then you fill up. Eat at a truck stop or grab a burger right??

Women, and I’m only speaking from stories I’ve heard, this is not personal experience, this may not be you, but I have a feeling it might describe some of you.

I’ll start with potty breaks, man, why get the iced tea from Chick-fil-A, I don’t get it, so many potty breaks, and some are like 30-45 minutes after we just stopped, not gonna gas up, right???

Or how about lunch? Carl’s Jr, no chance, chipotle or Panera, Chick-fil-A, those aren’t right off the highway, usually, so that adds like at least an hour to the trip, 15 mins to get there, 30 to order and eat, and go to the bathroom, 15 mins to get back to the highway, and I didn’t even gas up, that’s another 5

Lastly getting up early, not a priority,

But seriously, Nicole has done great on these rides. We’ve really enjoyed that time together, listening to sermons or podcasts, we’ve done audiobooks, crosswords, argued, it’s been great.

You’re not going anywhere, you either have to finish the fight or go dark for a while, total silence while you stare off in distance to prove your point, it’s awesome.

But we both have ideas of what we want to do once we get there, who we want to see, or what we want to eat, or whatever.

Especially when we come here, this is home, we have such great friends here, family is here, and we have so much going on.

We do a lot together but we also tend to divide and conquer once we get here, we just get busy, caught up in everything, wanting to be a part of everything, not miss out on anything, and we don’t seem to realize it at first

But we’re not prioritizing our time together, we seem to drift.

Can anyone relate? Maybe it’s kids sports, or work, or our hobbies. I don’t know, but it just seems like we’re busy, rushing around, dividing and conquering, and yet not getting much accomplished, and feeling so short on time.

There’s even that feeling inside, a slight anxiousness, those thoughts, what am I supposed to be doing, did I forget something,

Or Maybe it’s just trying to enjoy this life, traveling and taking vacations, eating out, hanging out with friends, not that those are bad things.

There’s a lot of good things that we have and can do living in this country, and not for nothing, but being upwardly mobile, white collar, middle to upper middle class, that’s our demographic, actually, according to the world as a whole, we are rich.

We can have more, we can do more, know more, achieve more than any other period in our history, and yet we so busy, we’re worried, we’re anxious, we’re depressed, like what’s the deal with that?

Movement 2

Idol Factories

It’s not that we don’t worship, we may not worship the one true God, but we were created to worship, it’s a matter of what we worship

Our hearts are idol factories

Too easily pleasured, a holiday at the sea vs a mud puddle

That’s the issue, we worship too many things

Sure we come to church and worship, hear a good message, have a full heart when we leave, but then what?

What are all the excuses we have for not coming to church consistently? Are those idols

What are all the things that occupy our minds, things to purchase and places to go, are those idols?

What causes us to worry? Where we worry is where we don’t trust God. Is what we worry about an idol?

Here’s a way to know not if, but what idols you have in your life, you are anxious and frustrated in the pursuit of whatever that is? Be it a job, a possession, what’s best for our kids, etc.

You’re anxious and easily frustrated in the pursuit of it

You’re fearful and panicked that you might lose it

You’re devastated over the loss of it

That is idolatry.

Now Israel entered a land of idols portrayed in graven images, or statues and poles, high places and temples all dedicated to these foreign gods

Today we really don’t have that, a temple to Baal, or a