We arrived back at The King’s Lodge Thursday afternoon, on the 14th of August. We were exhausted after 20+ hours of traveling with our 3 kids and ready for rest. It’s now Saturday and we’ve not done much other than settle back into our flat, sleep, and wash clothes.
I keep pondering big picture lessons from the last two years of journeying over four continents and the middle of the Pacific Ocean and can’t help but come back to the Greatest Commandment: To love God wholeheartedly and to love others. The thing that makes that complicated is how most lives don’t allow much time to accomplish it.
If all of life really boils down to loving and worshiping God and loving others, then it would seem that our days may be prioritized incorrectly. We spend more time working and pursuing personal endeavors than we ever do developing relationships with others or with God. And, technological advances over the past 50 years have enabled us to go through our days with little to zero personal contact with anyone. If you were to diary how you spend your time each day you might be frightened how little of it involves actual interaction with God or others.
That’s enough philosophizing for now. I am looking forward to returning to Arkansas on the 28th of August. I look forward to reconnecting with so many people, our church, and our community. I pray we will be more about people than any “thing.” Yes, it will be good to eat real Mexican food or an American cheeseburger, to have my own pillow and to see my dog, but what I really long for is a hug from parents or coffee on a couch with friends, helping someone prepare a meal or catching up over cake on others’ lives.
