Sauntering to the Holy Land

from Thoreau's essay, "Walking"

"They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean...the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea."
I want to point out something that hit me while I was reading this essay today. In our lives we are to be saunterers; walkers, explorers with purpose. We are seeking the Holy Land, God's kingdom on earth, not geographically but in justice and beauty. We are actively seeking to join in the process of our sanctification. We must never sit back and let life happen to us. Even though sometimes we will feel like a meandering river we must remember that that river is, and must be "sedulously seeking the shortest course" to its destination or else it will dry up. Sometimes the shortest course is not an obvious straight line. And lets also encourage ourselves by remembering Tolkien's quote in the prophecy about Aragorn, "All who wander are not lost."While we choose to trust God in where He will take us we must still saunter on. And when we feel lost in our sauntering we must turn our faces East, trust our guide even if we cannot see Him, and take another step toward the Holy Land.