Distracted and Wandering

"I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment."     ~Hilaire Belloc

 Wandering is aimless.  Without an intended destination or end.  It's easy, requires no purposed thought, and no goal .  

 Traveling usually has an intended destination to reach in mind.  It can be easy or difficult.  It is typically planned and directed towards a goal.  

 Some of you may well know that one of my favorite things to do is travel.  I love jumping in my car and taking off to a new city to see places I never have before!  (I would say the same of airplanes but they make me horribly sick.  Even the thought of them right now turns my stomach.)  I have been incredibly blessed to travel here at home and abroad.  The course this blog may take will, more than likely, be directly linked to the travelings and places I have been during a point in time.  I do find a type of fulfillment or enjoyment from traveling.  But please know, I never find a deep fulfillment in it.  Often I find a wandering in it.  A seeking of a destination that does not exist in a place.

 Wandering seems to be a theme in my life over the past few years.  Perhaps, it is the related to my age and what most of us experience in our early twenties.  My observation, though, has been that I do it to keep myself distracted.  My physical wanderings and sometimes travelings I find to be a reflection of my heart wanderings.  And, oh, I have found it is so easy to keep distracted and keep wandering!  Simply watch movies all day, catch up on missed TV shows, read a book, plan a trip, these are just a few of my distractions.

 I am distracted by my future, sometimes the past.  I want to know the destination of my future and all the while I wander in the present.  Making it aimless and without goal.  I get so focused on finding where I will be and what I will be doing in the future forgetting that the present is all I have, forgetting that the goal is not a destination but a Person and a relationship with my Creator who desire me to know Him.

 My destination, my goal should be to know my God more and more each day.  But, oh, how I have a heart that loves to wander!!!

 Oh to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let they goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, oh take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

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