Years ago there was a place I used to visit occasionally that seemed like paradise to me. I used to daydream about what it would be like to live and work there. Then, some years later, an opportunity came to actually do that very thing, and I took a job and moved there, hardly able to believe my luck and that I’d actually arrived at where I’d always wanted to be. Eighteen months later, as a result of some complex and distressing relationships, that place I thought of as heaven became hell, and I couldn’t wait to leave it.
It reminds me that Christianity has always taught that life is a journey, not a destination. Robert Louis Stevenson said: ‘To travel hopefully is a far better thing than to arrive.’ And Jesus made it clear that the direction in which we are facing is always more important than the particular place we have reached.