Journeys

December 2, 2024 | By Emma Ventresca BF ‘26

image description: gazing up at redwood trees

This past summer, I took a hike with a close friend in Pennsylvania’s Moraine State Park. I had walked on the same trails many times before, but this time was different. This time, I took a journey.

A walk and a journey are not the same. A walk implies a degree of comfort and expectation. When an owner walks his dog, he has an express purpose in mind. He knows what route he will take and when he will return home. My family often takes walks together, and there is never disagreement on the path—around the neighborhood—and the time frame—about an hour. On a journey, however, one loses the safety nets that guard against the unknown. We are called to “set out in the deep.” The first step we take on a trail is a promise to embrace every event along our path with open arms. This requires radical trust, but as the old maxim says, we only grow when we get out of our comfort zones.

Jesus calls us to the same surrender. Take the example of Peter, the fisherman. His life probably looked the same each day on repeat: fishing in the Sea of Galilee, eating, praying, and sleeping. But one day, Jesus came to the shore and called him and his brother Andrew to be “fishers of men.” He called them to immediately follow in his footsteps, to place their full confidence in Him. When Peter and John, both simple fishermen, began their journey with the Son of God, neither was extraordinary. But along this path of full surrender, both became saints.

A journey implies an effect, a change. We approach a journey with a higher degree of intentionality than we do a walk with our dog or a leisurely stroll with family. A journey relies on the traveler moving from one location to another, and in the end, changing in some mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual sense. 

Our relationship with God on this journey is beautiful in that we need not be the first movers. While I had to rely on tree markings and the well-trod path in front of me to guide me home, Jesus calls us to stillness so He can work through us. This call to be moved rather than to move challenges us—especially the motivated and ambitious—to be passive, restful in world that rewards the active. 

It would not be truthful to say that this is not frustrating at times. When a tree falls directly in my path, I try to move it not once, not twice, but hundreds of times, only to feel exasperated in the end. It is in these moments that I have learned that overcoming hardships is more than an act of my own will; it is an acceptance of His will, an act of divine grace. 

God may give us the strength to lift the tree off of the path some days; and other days, he simply calls us to endure, to trust on the journey, and to allow him to show us another way to travel.

Close your eyes and picture the epic journey of the three magi. King Herod initially tried to deceive the magi, asking them to find Jesus so he could pay Him homage when, in reality, he was planning his execution. With only a star to guide them and no visible endpoint in sight, doubt and fear could have easily dissuaded them from continuing their journey. But after presenting their gifts to the Messiah and paying Jesus homage, the magi did not return to Herod but instead took a different path. Trusting in the star the First Mover placed in the sky, the three magi pursued the newborn King and were forever changed. Like the magi, let us adopt the mantle of obedience and trust, hopeful that the Living God will transform us as well. What this transformation looks like—gratitude for life, fire for the faith, healing from hardship—has no bounds, for “nothing is impossible with God.” However big or small, Jesus desires our renewal.

When I returned to my friend’s 2013 Ford F150, my boots were a bit muddier, my hair a bit frizzier, my clothes a bit wetter from a run-in with a slippery rock and a river. But setting out into the woods also changed something within me. I still can’t quite pinpoint what it is…but I know that is part of the journey too. Experiencing the transformative power of Christ is a journey of a lifetime.