9. I do best on my journey when I have a guide.

Do you have a guide for your journey? A person? Jesus?

What do you most need help with on your journey? Who might be the best guide to help you?

Is there something that makes you reluctant to ask for help on your journey?

The word “journey” is a helpful way of describing our spiritual life with God. Our life with God is not a class that culminates with a test to see how much we have learned. It is not something we acquire or purchase. Life with God is not a competition, like a game with a beginning and an end. It is not an adventure, a vacation, or an event to attend.

Our spiritual life with God is a relationship. It changes and matures and will continue to grow on into eternity. The idea of a journey describes well our life with God and leads us to a question: “How do we know the way for our journey?” The answer is that we need a guide. Ultimately, Jesus desires to be the guide for our journey, but He understands that early in our journey, and also at key points along the way, another person may be helpful in guiding us.

This guide is not like an instructor that teaches a class or an agent who sells us something. A guide is not a referee or an event planner. A guide is someone who understands the journey, has probably experienced more of it than we have, has been trained by other guides, and is currently being guided by Jesus.

A guide helps us to understand the journey but most important, a guide helps us come to know Jesus as our ultimate Guide. While guides may tell us about Jesus and share what Jesus taught, like John the Baptist, they will desire to decrease their voice in our lives while helping increase Jesus’ voice. Guides can be like trainers; they know the best way to make the journey and they teach and train us how to grow in our relationship with God.

In His last words to His disciples, Jesus invited them to become guides for all people.  “Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 The Message).

Jesus desires and promises to be our personal guide on our spiritual journey, but He also knows that we may need a human guide. It is not good for us to journey alone.