Tag: travel - Only By Prayer

My husband, Mark, and I are on a journey.

Well, we all are, aren’t we? But we are on a traveling journey that is a bucket list item for him. He has always wanted to ride his bike across the country. It’s a family kind of thing.

Mark going on a training ride.

Mark’s brother Steve rode his bike from Indiana to San Diego when he was 19. Our son Jesse walked across America by himself (I know, lots of grey hair for me) when he was 19. And Mark is getting ready to ride his bike from coast to coast. It’s been in the works for several years, but now it’s happening. I’m going along with him to be his support. I’ll be pulling a 14.5 foot travel trailer that will be our home for the next several months as Mark bikes from Florida to Portland, Oregon. If you’re interested, you can follow our blog at Kick Up Some Dust and our Facebook page.

We’ve been in Florida training for the last four weeks, but that is drawing to a close. We leave Monday, April 10, 2017, our first day on the road.

What’s My Part in This?

As I was praying about this trip and what God had in mind for me, the phrase “prayer across America” popped into my mind. Over the next several days as I mulled this over, I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to focus on two areas:

to pray geographically as we travel across the country, and
to watch for any “God appointments” as we travel.

Prayer Support

I would love for you to join me in praying through each geographic area as we travel across the country. A couple of times a week, I’ll post about where Mark and I are currently along with a prayer for that area. I hope that people will then add their prayers in the comment section at the bottom of the post. If you live in that area, by all means, please list any requests that are pertinent to that general area.

Here’s my inspiration for Prayer Across America, a wonderful Bible verse that Mary felt led to:

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Jeremiah 29:7

Let’s join together in praying for our wonderful nation. I can’t do it by myself. Will you join me? Starting next Monday, April 10, I will put up the first geographic prayer post. Let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like to join me in interceding for our nation by leaving a comment below.

You can find a link to each week’s prayers below.

Week 1 Prayer Across America

Week 2 Prayer Across America

Week 3 Prayer Across America

Week 4 Prayer Across America

Week 5 Prayer Across America

Pray on!

“The Lord says, ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life, I will advise you and watch over you.’” Psalm 32:8NLT

Learning that God had a plan for my life was a relief to me.

I hadn’t done such a good job at it myself, making mistakes along the way, living in fear that I’d never get it right. I soon discovered, however, that knowing He had a plan and following it were two different things. I still felt like something was missing. And it was.

When I was 18, I had the delight of traveling to Germany after high school graduation to meet my relatives. My German grandparents also happened to be there at the same time, returning for a trip to visit the “old country” and their families they had left many years before. At the end of my visit, I was packing when Grandpa slipped a few pouches in my suitcase.

“I don’t think I’ll have room for these when we leave next week, Janie,” he said as he stuffed them in my suitcase. My cousin Max loaded my suitcase in the car as I searched the house for any forgotten items. At the airport, I waved good-bye to family and grabbed my suitcase to head through the Frankfurt airport. I could barely budge the thing. “What happened to this?!” I thought to myself. I suddenly recalled the bags Grandpa shoved in there, wondering what could possibly be in them.

I dragged that suitcase what seemed like miles to my gate, so encumbered by the weight of it that I wasn’t certain I would make it, arms and back aching. I was never so glad to unload something as I was that suitcase at the baggage check.

Extra Baggage

When I got home, I found the bags Grandpa had glibly tossed in. I peeked inside one of them. BB pellets! Each bag was brimming with BB pellets, weighing about 5 pounds. Ugh. My ultra-frugal grandfather had found a deal on pellets, and I had just lugged them halfway around the world for him.

After spending the previous day dragging around my suitcase, I had learned the lesson of traveling lightly. But it wasn’t until many years later that I realized this truth applies to much more than our physical travels. Thomas A Kempis said, “They travel lightly whom God’s grace carries.” I spent too many years of my young adulthood dragging around 30 pounds of my “BB pellet” past. God was guiding me along the best pathway for my life, but I was so bogged down by my past that I was just inching along.

Finally, the Holy Spirit taught me that I was missing grace — the grace that rids us of what has come before, freeing us for what is now. I already had the grace that forgives all my sins at the cross of Jesus. But I needed to learn how to accept grace for the journey that each day brings, realizing that each day I can choose to walk in that grace and live it. I learned that traveling lightly means I live with open hands that are not full with holding on to the past but are empty, waiting to grasp what God has for me today, now.

And it makes all the difference: Grace means I can dump the baggage of my past, free to run the path God has laid before me. Free to relish His plans. Free to join in His work.

If you’re still towing around your past, it’s time to permanently check it at God’s baggage counter and run with Him down the pathway of grace called Your Life.

Has grace made a difference in your life? Please feel free to share your experience below.