Pilgrim's progress

​“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion” (Psalm 84:5-7).
 
Lately I’ve seen lots of comments and posts by church and ministry leaders warning about exhaustion and feeling dazed and confused as challenge upon challenge – coronavirus, racial reconciliation, etc. – make the task of leading God’s people seem all the more complex and uncertain. For my family and I, moving to the States and taking the helm at ISI at a time such as this has just been complicated a tad more, in the light of the US President’s executive order temporarily suspending work visas for foreign workers. When it rains, it pours!
 
Pilgrims Are Blessed
 
Unsettling as all of this has been, I’m nonetheless grateful for the timely reminder in the above psalm that we are pilgrims called by God to join Him on mission. This brings to mind the opening line of that Steve Green favorite, Find Us Faithful – I’m seriously revealing my age here! – which goes, “We’re pilgrims on the journey of the narrow road.”
 
Pilgrimage is by definition an uncertain undertaking, where one takes leave of one’s comfort zone and journeys toward a particular destination. It could prove potentially treacherous, as Peter discovered when he got out of the boat and walked amid the wind and waves – walking on water! – toward Jesus (Matthew 14:29). Like John Bunyan’s pilgrims in The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come, we find our way fraught with perils such as Giant Despair, Giantess Diffidence, Doubting Castle, and the like.
 
And yet the psalmist underscores the fact that those whose hearts are set on pilgrimage, in response to the Shepherd’s call, are blessed (Psalm 84:5). Beloved, you and I are blessed because our strength, our confidence and trust, are in Christ!
 
Blessed To Bless
 
Secondly, we are blessed not solely for our own benefit, but that we may bless others! When Abraham and Sarah set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for Haran and then Canaan in response to God’s call, the covenant and mandate they received was to be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12:1-3). In like fashion, as pilgrims passing through our Valleys of Baka – the dry arid places that hunger and thirst for God’s blessing, healing, and rejuvenation – we are to make them into places of springs.
 
The present-day valleys in which we find ourselves have been scorched by multiple crises – COVID, economic downturn, racial strife, the list goes on. Again, like Bunyan’s pilgrims, we find in the valleys and wildernesses to which the Spirit of the Lord has led us a Mr. Despondency here or a Ms. Much Afraid there whom we could not only comfort but indeed liberate. For God has appointed and anointed us as the channels and faucets of His healing and refreshment, as His repairers of broken walls and restorers of homes with dwellings, as His peacemakers and ministers of reconciliation!
 
Crucially, we do the good works to which God has appointed us not by ourselves. Note how the Lord adds to our meager efforts: the autumn rains also cover it with pools (v. 6b). As we do our part, He takes our small offerings and multiplies them in ways unimaginable and immeasurable, bringing about deliverance and transformation the levels and lights of which are quite beyond anything we could ever have accomplished on our own.
 
Strength To Strength
 
Those Valleys of Baka are not our final destination, but points or stages along our pilgrimage. Our physical or geographical location may not change, but our circumstances often do. Whether we – as called by God – move or stay put in the context of our pilgrimage, we go from strength to strength till we appear before Him in Zion. As travelers whose hearts are set on pilgrimage, we’ve opted to take the road less traveled by. And that, as Frost would say, has made all the difference.