A Human Journey To God:

'The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day'
(Proverbs 4:18)
The human life and journey does find its happy ending in Christ. Yet we struggle to understand this
ending when our present existence is not happy, but instead full of difficulties. 'That happy ending is
not mine!' We are inclined to think. What we must do is tie this ending we believe in to our present
struggles, and in doing so we will bring the light of the good news into our present lives. We will be
helped to see the whole story God has given us; we will be reminded that there is great good to be
had by us. More than this, we shall be encouraged that we travel even a hard road to a happy
ending, which can only strengthen our arms, and legs, and souls, for the tribulations and dreams
ahead.
A Good End To Which We Tumble, Stumble And Climb:
Saint Augustine described faith as a journey to our happiness, to our 'Love'. In a wonderful and
famous passage he writes: 'suppose we were travellers who could live happily only in our
homeland, and because our absence made us unhappy we willed to put an end to our misery and
return there: we would need transport by land or sea which we could use to travel to our homeland,
the object of our enjoyment ... So in this mortal life we are like travellers away from our Lord [2 Cor
5:6]' (Book 1:8:9 De Doctrina Christiana). Our life in faith, for Augustine, is the road which leads us
eventually back to our God. It is all, even in these struggles, a struggle back to our rest, and back
to the God in whom we flourish. This journey may see us at times with no friends, it may see us at
times wishing to die, it may see us more stressed than we knew possible. Yet in all these things,
you travel still, in all these things and everything else you may fix your eyes and heart on God, and
in doing so come to know Him, and come to know what it is to be human.

So we see that the crippling lows man is aquatinted with are the harsh roads of this journey still to
our God, just as the wonderful highs we live to know are those parts of the road which are pleasant
and joyful to walk. Do we not even see this when we go for a walk, and some stretches are harder
than others, but we walk because we know that we are walking to our family, or our love, or the
project we have so excitedly been working on. The days can be good and they can be bad, and
there is a sense in which we grow in the experiences. Yet there is always this vision and the vision
is that your fiancee will open the door when you arrive, or your work will be waiting there ready to
be completed. Our own story also, for all the injustices we endure, is nonetheless a journey to our
God. It is in this most epic journey more than any other where we come to know what it is to be
human and, at last, what it is to be happy.
Yet we speak as if this journey is one way, and in doing so neglect the incarnation! Our life may be
a journey to our happiness, but it is a journey made possible not through our own strength, neither
through our own righteousness, but rather through God's grace. We must remember that God
journeyed to humankind, as we read in the Gospel of John: 'The true light that gives light to
everyone was coming into the world' (John 1:9), as the angel declares 'for today a saviour has
been born to you' (Luke 2:11)! Christ came to save us. This is a grace which C.S. Lewis speaks of
at the end of The Screw Tape Letters when he writes of God: 'If only the will to walk is really there
He will be pleased even with their stumbles'(Ch 8). Our journey is not so unlike that of the Prodigal
Son running back to his Father and His return being celebrated even though the journey had been
rough and much had gone wrong (Luke 15:11-32). Or maybe like a sheep, who the Shepard has
found and is carrying back to the flock (Matthew 18:11-13). If you can marry these two ideas, of us
journeying to God, and God saving us, then we might not be so far from the truth.
In the image of our life as a pilgrim walking home, we see the big picture. In the metaphor we see
our home, and we know what it is to walk. Our God is our home, and our lives in faith are our
journey. The metaphor shows the journey to sometimes be hard, and our life testifies that times can
be difficult as well as good. The key in this is to see past our present scenario, and see the bigger
picture, see our future and our happy ending! See how our present difficulties belong to the story,
we are all born to struggle but the happy ending is ours no less.
Our happy ending is on the horizon, but knowing it is there gives us strength through the days.
Indeed it is a future we already engage in when we pray, read Scripture, and yearn to know our
God. I think it's always been really eloquently put by the line in Proverbs, which reads: 'The path of
the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day'. Our life brings us
to know God and the wonder this is, even whilst we face all the difficulties the world throws at us.
We are saved, so let's uphold our own journeys and our own lives, and celebrate in our hearts the
good news that is Christ Jesus.