The Next Epic Journey

Yesterday we reflected on pilgrimage — the ancient practice of setting out toward something God is calling you into, even when the destination isn't entirely clear.

Today I want to stay with that image. Because I think some of us may be wondering whether the season for that kind of journey has passed.

It hasn’t.

Over the course of a lifetime, there are many pilgrimages. Some we choose. Some choose us. Journeys of faith and doubt, of raising children and letting them go, of building something and watching it end, of leaving home and finding it somewhere unexpected. Some of these journeys are physical. Some are interior. Some are both at once.

And calling — we tend to think of that as a single thing. A vocation. A life's work. But I have come to believe that calling is less like a destination and more like a series of doors. And God keeps opening new ones, at every stage of life, for as long as we are willing to walk through them.

I think about a man I knew who retired from a military career in his early fifties. He went back to school and earned a degree in fine arts. He became a painter — and not a hobbyist. A real one. In his seventies he was commissioned to paint murals in his city. When I knew him, he was in his eighties, showing up faithfully to a Spanish-speaking Bible study every Sunday night — growing in his faith and fine-tuning a language he had only recently begun to learn.

You're never too old to grow, he would say.

The book of Hebrews tells us that by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called. He was in his eighties. Sarah was not far behind. They left everything familiar — not because they had a clear plan, but because God was nudging them forward. They set out, Hebrews says, not knowing where they were going.

Just like the Celtic pilgrims we thought about yesterday. Just like most of us, if we're honest, at the beginning of any journey worth taking.

What Abraham and Sarah had was not a map. They had a willingness. And it turned out, that was enough.

I know some of you have already undertaken epic journeys — of immigration, of recovery, of loss and rebuilding. Journeys that cost you everything and gave you back something you couldn't have found any other way.

And I know some of you may be sitting quietly with a question you haven't said out loud yet:

Does God have something yet for me? Are there any journeys left?

Almost certainly yes!

The door may not look the way you expect. The calling may be quieter than the ones that came before. It may be inward rather than outward — a journey toward healing, or depth, or a peace you have not yet fully found. Or it may be something entirely new. A language you haven't learned. A gift you haven't fully given. A person who needs exactly what only you — with everything you have lived and lost and learned — can offer.

You are not too old. It is not too late. Remember: Abraham and Sarah…

Prayer: God of every season, we thank you that your calling on our lives does not expire. That you are always beckoning us forward — into more than we have yet imagined. Grant us dreams and longings that are in harmony with yours. Give us the courage to say yes to the next door, whatever it looks like. And may we trust, as Abraham trusted, that you will meet us on the road. In Jesus' name. Amen.

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