Today’s reading: Ezekiel 40-42, John 14
Saturday before last (Oct. 21), my sixteen year old daughter announced she had scheduled a campus tour at the University of Tennessee. I was encouraged that she was thinking about college and had taken the initiative to make plans, until…I figured out she set the tour for this (past) Friday…a mere six days away. Ugh, that was pretty quick. While it didn’t give me a lot of time to plan, I didn’t want to squelch her momentum, so I re-arranged my calendar and found a way to make it work.
I’ve made the drive from Bloomington to Knoxville five or six times in my life, so I was comfortable that I knew the way. We headed out on Thursday afternoon about 1pm. Turns out I’d forgotten a few things since I last made the drive in 1991 – you lose an hour on the way, the tricky interchange is in Louisville not in Lexington, and the Smoky Mountains are between Lexington and Knoxville not between Knoxville and Johnson City. I thought I knew the way, but in reality I had forgotten some of the most important details. Thank goodness for GPS.
In John 14, our text for today, Jesus’ was forecasting his death and eventual return to Heaven. His disciples, however, weren’t tracking with him. These men had given up everything to follow Jesus, but they didn’t know the way to where he was now talking about going. Notice that Jesus’ response was not directions on where they needed to go, rather who they needed to follow, who they needed to trust.
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:5-6).
Jesus was and is still the way. The reality is we don’t need all the details on where we are going and how we’re going to get there, we just need to keep our trust firmly placed in Jesus. Stay close to him and he will guide your path.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS4JQi4dgvg