Re-placing Ourselves

Nothing excites me more than the idea of being on the move.

Most of my travel these days is in the United Kingdom but motion usually brings me to novel, silent places and always prompts thought, prayer and reflection. There is something about being slightly ‘away from ourselves’ that can help us to see ourselves, others and God in a new light. Movement is seldom merely a physical displacement, but is often a place of spiritual opportunity. In his book, ‘The Art of Travel’, Alain de Botton writes: ‘Journeys are the midwives of thought’.

In Chapter 1 of CofD, Richard Foster stresses time and again that the spiritual disciplines we will explore together in the weeks to come are journeys, but not destinations. They merely ‘place us before God’. And being before God is a place of change and blessing which is the true destination of the follower-pilgrim.

Last Monday, together with a crowd at church, I listened to stories of change and providence: Jenny (now praying in partnership), Charlie (changed by small acts of service and listening) and Dorothy (connected into a new community from a place of isolation).

As I listened (and many of us wept), I was reminded that these places of change (and the dozen others that were spoken of) had not been arrived at accidentally. Each one was the result of a conscious, spiritual act of movement towards a place where God might work. Each bore the hallmark of spiritual discipline. Each was within the reach of young and old, too.

In moving to a new place closer to God, we ourselves are re-placed for the good.