Steve West: The joy of wandering

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 7th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s WORLD commentator Steve West now on the benefits of just wandering around.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: No one I know uses the word "perambulatory" in ordinary conversation. If someone is walking we might say they are ambulatory. But perambulatory means to walk about or travel around. And that's what we do in life. We even wander at times. That's how we discover and learn.

Scripture is full of perambulators. The Israelites walked from Egypt to the Promised Land. Nehemiah walked from Babylon to a Jerusalem in ruins. Jesus walked the hills and valleys of Galilee. The Apostle Paul journeyed throughout much of the known world— mostly by foot. Everywhere, the people of the Book walked.

Not only that, scripture has much to say about how we walk. Walk in Christ, in the light, by faith and not sight, in truth, by the Spirit. The Christian life is described as a sojourn in which we are aliens and strangers in the world, one in which we often wander, knowing the object of our faith-walk, Christ, yet not always knowing where to take the next step.

In Colossians 2:6 (ESV), Paul says that "as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” Yet walking in Him can involve a fair amount of wandering; we know our destination but don't know quite how we will get there. We have the means of grace… like scripture and prayer … but no step-by-step instruction manual.

Even driving suggests this kind of wandering. On my drive home from my former job, I knew my destination. I usually followed the same set of roads. Yet occasionally, I took a different route, one that carried me down a labyrinth of less familiar streets, through neighborhoods, by streams, and under canopies of trees. One in which I was always slightly lost, letting my route unfold before me.

That wandering allowed me to see things I hadn’t seen before. I was sometimes surprised by the sounds of birds, children playing on a lawn, a brilliantly blooming tree. I was not lost or, at least, was only a little lost. I was wandering home.

In his book, Dusty Ones: Why Wandering Deepens Your Faith, A.J. Swoboda says that "Our efforts to learn to love and follow Jesus must meander through wherever we are as we wander our way through life." For Swoboda, wandering and discipleship are linked. He says, "One can wander and be right on track, just as being in the desert doesn't necessarily mean we are deserted." Wandering doesn't mean we're lost, just figuring things out.

To be sure, Scripture speaks often of those who wander away from the commandments, from truth, who seek their own way. But "not all who wander are lost," reminds J.R.R. Tolkien, in a poem from his Fellowship of the Ring.

That's worth remembering. If we know those who seem off track, who are perambulating, they may not be lost. And they are never deserted. Pray for them. Point them to Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. All who belong to Him will yet come home.

I’m Steve West.

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