Great Expectations

I sit here on the first leg of my journey.  I have dreamed about making this trip for years and for the last several months this dream has been at the edge of the horizon slowly coming into view.  I'm filled with emotions of many kinds.  From soul-bursting excitement to anxiety and uncertainty. It is difficult for me to comprehend the fact that at the end of this journey I will be in the land where God chose a people to be a blessing to all nations.  A land where that same people struggled with what it meant to be a blessing and frequently failed to deliver upon it.  The land where God himself came down to us, where he walked among us.  It is the land where my Savior lived and breathed and where he drew his last.  More gloriously, it is the land where he defeated death and rose again beginning the work of making all things new.  This is the land today known as the Holy Land, the land of Israel.

As I wait for the train to leave the station, I allow my mind to wander and wonder.  I begin to dream of what it will be like when the dust of the Judaen wilderness blows over my sandals.  Will I gaze out over the barrenness and feel the loneliness of the shepherd's life?  Will I recall the temptations of Jesus and recognize those same temptations in my own life?  What will it be like to stand on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and imagine what the disciples felt as they saw Jesus coming to them?  I feel like Joshua on the edge of the promised land.  I'm looking out over the land that I have been working towards, the land that I have dreamt about in my wanderings and now the rush of excitement mixes with a twinge of fear.  The dreaming has left me with great expectations.  What if it fails to measure up?  What if I miss out on what God wants for me on this trip due to my own preoccupations with life?  Then the other 'what if' questions begin to enter into my mind.  What if I miss my flight?  What if my luggage gets lost?  What if... What if...  Life seems to be filled with 'what if's.

I find that my journey to Israel parallels the rest of the story I find myself in.  After wandering for so long in trying to find God's desire for me, I am quickly approaching graduation.  In a few short months I will be finishing up seminary and looking to do what I was created for.  It has the same feelings of excitement and uncertainty that I now face going to Israel.  The same great expectations linger in my head.  The same 'what if' questions dance around in my thoughts.  What if being a pastor isn't what I imagine it to be?  After all, I've built it up so much, how it could it possibly measure up?  I wonder if I have been in error in allowing these expectations and dreams to fester.  If somehow I have already set myself up for disappointment.  A part of me seems to be saying to do away with these expectations so I won't be disappointed or discouraged.  Yet there is something else, some part of me hears a whisper that gently reassures me and says "Dare to dream big, and see if I'm not more than all you've ever dreamed."  When we are on the verge of all we've known and are about to embark on a journey into the untamed wilderness of the unknown, it is there that God says "I am with you."  May we never forget that and may we continue to dream big.