Thoughts on travel

This post was technically brewing in my brain before I left, but I did not find the time to write the post before I left. As I woke up Saturday morning, knowing I was leaving to go to Ethiopia that day, I took some time to get really quiet and still, so I could pray and listen. I really wanted to be able to be prepared for the trip. I wanted to be open to whatever God wanted to do in or through me on the way over. I had such an overwhelming sense of God's presence and His peace as I sat quietly. I felt so surrounded and overwhelmed by Him. What I really felt Him impressing on my heart and stirring me to pray about was really, really being present and engaged in everything around me as I traveled. Sometime I can be so distracted by my mind which always seems to be going a million miles an hour. Sometimes I miss what is really going on around me b/c I am so in my head planning or thinking or processing. I am where I am, but just not fully aware of everything that my senses could be taking in. I felt like I needed to be very intentional on the plane, in the airport, and all along the trip to take in what was going one around me.

What did I see with my eyes? Not just this is an airport, but what are the details my eyes see in the airport?

What do I smell?

What do I hear?

I wanted to notice the people around me, what did they look like? What were they doing? What were they saying? Did God have anything to say about them? Did He want me to engage them?

How did I feel? What was going on in my mind? In my emotions?

I just felt like I really needed to take in what was going on around me. God gave me senses to experience the world around me? My senses are to stir my affections for Him and tell me about what is going on that I can see and maybe sometimes what I can't see. It can be so easy to take the fact that my five senses work, because they do work so well. It would be very sad to not truly appreciate my senses until one of them is gone. I had a sense that He did not want me to be so wrapped up in getting to the destination (getting to Ethiopia), that I missed the adventure and experience of the journey. I guess that has kind of been the theme He has been recently speaking to me about life over and over. I have, in the past, been so focused on the end destination of so many times that I missed all that I could have gotten on the journey. I finally understand that the journey is as important as the destination. Yes, where God is taking us is important, but He is also working in us along the way. He wants for me to get so much more as we go than I usually get due to not really understanding the importance of the path that gets me to where I am going.