Are We There Yet?

Psalm 84:2-13

Phrases that spoke to me today:
• in their hearts are pilgrim roads
• they find spring water to drink
• better one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere

Applying the Word to My Life:
Several times each year, I drive back to Christ the King Priory in Schuyler, Nebraska, where I'm in formation to become a Benedictine Oblate, a layperson who tries to live the Benedictine way of life in the world. By now the place is familiar. I know the buildings, the chapel, the roads, and many of the people. But each time I return, I'm at a different point in my journey with God.

Sometimes I arrive focused and feeling close to Him. Sometimes I'm distracted. Sometimes I want the company of the group, and other times I want to be alone in the chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is kept. The place has barely changed. I haven't become a different person. I'm simply farther along the same pilgrim road.

That's what caught my attention in today's psalm: "in their hearts are pilgrim roads." The people singing it were actually traveling toward Jerusalem, but the journey was also happening inside them. They passed through a hard stretch of the road and found water there. They moved "from strength to strength" as they drew closer to the place where they would encounter God.

The interior life can work like that. We often assume spiritual growth should look like movement on the outside: a new season, a new place, a new routine, some obvious sign that we're making progress. But sometimes God does His deepest work while the scenery stays exactly the same.

That's one of the things I appreciate about the Benedictine idea of stability. Staying rooted doesn't mean standing still. You can pray in the same chapel, live in the same house, do the same work, and still be traveling a great distance within.

The road to God doesn't always take us somewhere new. Sometimes it takes us deeper through the same familiar place.

The psalmist's pilgrims find water in the valley before they reach Jerusalem. That matters. We don't have to wait until we feel focused, peaceful, or spiritually strong before God can meet us. Distraction can be part of the road. Weariness can be part of it. So can joy, community, silence, and the simple desire to keep going.

The journey inward isn't about becoming someone else. It's about becoming more fully the person God is already calling us to be, one step at a time.

Maybe that's why the psalm can say, "Better one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere." The farther the pilgrim travels, the more clearly he understands what the journey is for.

My Response for Today:
Today I'll ask where God is leading me deeper in the life I already have.