FROM THE PRESIDENT

John Upton Journey into the Unknown In my travels for the BWA, I have learned of many

epic tales of local cultures. There are countless examples of epic quests, of mythical human heroes on a long journey of discovery. You have Homer’s Odyssey, King Arthur’s knights questing for the Holy Grail, Sinbad’s voyages, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Dorothy’s Yellow Brick Road, Frodo’s journey for the ring. On and on they go, these stories of journeys of discovery. Why do we keep creating these stories and loving

these stories? The deepest reason I can think of is that they tell us about ourselves. They tell us about what our lives are or had better be. Living is a journey. It’s always a leaving and a moving on, all along encountering and learning. It is about being changed. Our continuing mission is to explore, to seek out, to boldly go – and if not boldly, at least to go. This theme is all throughout scripture. The Bible

teems with journeys. Liberated slaves trekking 40 years through the wilderness. Exiles in Babylon aching for the journey back home. Disciples sent throughout all the world. The Apostle Paul journeying all over the place. And Jesus, not only itinerate from village to village to village, not only on the long grim journey to his cross, but constantly saying to people with a great gleam in his eye, “Follow me!” And, so many of them actually did follow. Do you remember that is what his people actually called themselves for years before their world hung a moniker on them? They called themselves “Christians” – “People of the Way.” You might think it would be otherwise. Most people

out there think religion is otherwise. They think religion is about stability, security, permanence, safe-haven. But, authentic faith is an open ended journey. It’s about changing, growing, dynamic movement, tremendous vulnerability, and good discoveries in the company of fi ne, adventurous companions on the way. My travels and conversations with Baptist leaders

around the world have made it clear that many are uniquely discouraged right now, the morale is low, and confi dence is waning. There are exceptions of course. I

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think I hear that despair most in my part of the world, in North America. Yet, I hear it too, all over the world. It seems for many that we don’t have viable choices. We are facing a future we hadn’t counted on, uncertainties everywhere and not much comfort in the near future to see things through. This is certainly one way at looking at current situations. But there is another way of looking at our situations.

And that is: sometimes life presents us with more of a choice than all that. A door opens before us to do something we probably ought to do, to undertake some new diffi cult endeavor, to take some kind of stand, to say some words we probably should say, to risk something big, to give something big, but we are anxious about it because we can’t see what’s going to happen when we’ve done it. It comes down then to the not knowing, and in the not knowing, to trust the one who said, “I will show you, I will await you, I am with you every step of the way.” When we feel lost, have no sense of clarity, suffer

much ambiguity, experience too little comfort, we just keep living, just keep moving, and loving and waiting in that long uncertain season. This is what it means to be a child of God. All I know is that we are never too old or never too young or in-between to embrace some marvelous new insecurity and to embrace new steps of risk called faith. I don’t think the journey ever ends until fi nally we come to our rest. May our life and our faith never cease to be pilgrimage,

never get fi nished taking new steps of risking faith. Let’s not be afraid of the future that God inhabits. Uncertain as all our tomorrows may be, may we lift up our hearts on this good, great journey that is taking us home.