Wanderlust

We all have something of a wanderlust, don't we?  We all seem to keep moving, exploring, wandering, and seeking. Maybe it is just something in our nature.

The Bible has a lot to say about wandering and most of it leads to disaster. Proverbs 21:16 " A man who wanders from the way of understanding will rest in the assembly of the dead."  Pretty grim picture.  We know about the Israelite's 40 years of wandering. They did so because they failed to trust and obey what the Lord put before them. I think they were meant to learn from their time in the desert. I am quite sure they did not. I will let you get into that misadventure on your own time.  Or this verse from Amos 8:12 " People will stagger from sea to sea and from the north to the east; They will go to and from to seek the word of the Lord, but they will not find it." This was a warning when the Israelite's had tested the Lord over and over again, leading to his silence for generations. This came after the 40 years of desert trekking. Even will all the history at our fingertips, we go out of our way to make the same mistakes on repeat. Do you know the song, " Come thou Fount of Every Blessing"?

Prone to wander Lord I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, oh take and seal it

Seal it for thy courts above. 

What is it about us that makes us this way? But what if we turned our wandering to seeking? One of my favorite quotes is from JRR Tolkien from The Riddle of Strider- " Not all those who wander are lost" 

My husband and I jump at any chance to travel and explore new places. We take weekend getaways as often as we can, where we can simply unplug, unwind, and wander. We rarely make any plans beyond where we will stay. On these mini vacations we have found the most fascinating and beautiful places. There was a castle, sitting on a hill in Vermont, built  to woo a British royal. And a tourist stop in North Georgia called Goats on the Roof.  Here you could place some pellets in a tin cup and then peddle a stationary bike pushing the cup up a track to the roof where, you guessed it, goats fight over the goodies. 

As I am writing this I am sitting on the patio of a rustic 100 year old inn surrounded by pines and ivy. Rain is falling on the tin roof, and the sweet smell of damp earth fills the air. These are the places I feel closest to God. Wandering, but certainly not lost. 

I found these verses in Deuteronomy 32: 10-11 " He found him in a desert land. And in the howling waste of a wilderness he encircled him. He cared for him. He guarded him as the pupil of his eye. He watches over his nest like an eagle and hovers over his young. he spreads his wings, catches him, and carries him on his feathers." 

This was his song to remind his rebellious children of all he had done for them and how deeply he loved them. 

I can wander, as we are prone to do, but I will always be encircled by a God who is ready to catch me on his wings.