Are We there yet?

We have been traveling this past week with our girls, and they really have not been asking that much are we there yet….

BUT….

The other day I said we were there. We were sitting at a red light on the corner of two streets. And I said, “OK we are there.”
One of my daughters said, “no we are not there.”
I replied, “where is there?”
She said, “I do not know.”
I said, “Then how do you know we are not there?”

The problem with most of our outlooks on ministry is that we want to be there, with out first defining where there is. We put so much stock in how we are going to do the ministry, how we are going to get everything done, who we are going to get to help, and who we are going to help, that we miss the most important thing. Where are we going? If we have no defined location to arrive at, how are we going to know when we get there.

We can not go on a trip and not know where we are going. OK some of the people may not know, but one of the people on a trip has to know where the final destination is, otherwise, it is haphazard and is messy and takes a long time. Life and ministry are like this, but if we have some clue of where we are going, then we may actually make it.

So I wonder where is there? Where are we going?

How will we know when we have arrived?