After 20 countries, I want to work on “staying”
Adapted from Instagram.
Last year I set a goal of visiting 20 countries by 2020. I reached it standing in the middle of a square in Chile and it is one of my favorite memories.
The more I travel, the more I’ve started to ask myself whether I am packing my bags to rest or packing my bags to run. I think this can be a pretty big blindspot in a culture that thrives off of selling our generation experiences.
Airports are good for adventure, but the most magical part is often the person picking me up on the other side of the gate. New cities can charm us, but they do not slow down to learn your name. Mountains and empty buildings will never hold you the way your people can.
When we romanticize leaving, we often miss knowing that the best life we have is the one we wake up to every day. Oswald Chambers writes that mountaintops and sunrises can inspire us, but we were made for life in the valley. The highlights we share on social media, our favorite blogs, or even at dinner parties are rarely ever as important as the disciplines we grow in the valley: how we treat one another or who we become by putting down roots, serving our friends, building a home and being brave enough to stay.
I want to live like I’m forever standing in the Arrivals Lobby. I want to learn more about this valley living.
From Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
“We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God’s perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain..
We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life— those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength..
Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time. We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, ‘What’s the use of this experience?’ We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God’s purpose.”
– Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 1
