Just watched a video from Mike Donehey’s YouTube channel that inspired me and got me thinking. He made that video because he’d had a conversation with someone that got him thinking, which got me thinking. Maybe I’m about to get you thinking.
I’ll leave you to watch the video yourself and learn from his wisdom, but now I want to tell you what’s on my mind. It’s about my trip, and the reason behind it.
So, in less than two months, I’ll be leaving my home on a bicycle to travel around the country. Kind of crazy. For a long time, since I had the idea for this trip in the first place, even back when it was just supposed to be a road trip in my car, I’d thought of it as a way for me to witness to people, to spread the Gospel, to glorify God with my life. But Mike just got me thinking, that it’s really so much more than that. Because God isn’t just in me, He’s all over the place, His fingerprints are on everything! There are seven billion other people on this planet with His mark on them, whether they realize it or not, and their existence is giving glory to Him. C. S. Lewis actually writes about this subject; about how all beauty gives glory to God, whether or not the person who made it intends that — because our gifts are from God, and no good or beautiful thing that we do can be separated from Him. Say there’s this painter, who doesn’t believe in God, and he makes a piece of art more beautiful than any other you’ve seen. That art, is glorying God. It only exists because God’s fingerprints are on the painter.
So as this trip approaches and begins, I want to remember to keep my eyes and heart open. This journey isn’t just about my spreading the Gospel, but receiving it. I want to learn so much from God in this next year, and so much from the world He has made, the people He has put on this planet. I want to see God in places I never would think to look for Him. I’m going to have so much alone time — so much me and God time — on this trip. Hours and hours, days, weeks and months on a bicycle, alone with my thoughts and my God. It’s going to be unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, of that much I’m sure.
So pray for me — pray that God will continue opening my eyes to see His fingerprints all over this incredible world. And if I got you thinking, please drop a comment below, or shoot me an email. Thanks for reading.
— Joel