Destinations are important.  At some point in our lives, we have all heard phrases like: The journey is more important than the destination…  The process is more important than the goal…  It doesn’t matter where you go, what’s important is how you get there…

Whoever said those things never drove 3000 miles on a 3-week vacation with four young children in a very mini-van!  There are no good trips without good destinations.

Destinations matter.  A GPS requires both a present location and a destination. Every time I get on an airline, one of the stewards will announce something like — this is
flight 106 headed for Dallas, if this is not your destination, please deboard now.  By the way I’ve never seen anyone deboard, but I always imagine some guy, stuck to his seat in quiet desperate embarrassment thinking — “Crud, there’s no way I’m gonna let people know I got on the wrong plane.  Besides I’ve never been to Dallas before…”

A few years ago, a group of us from Calvary went to Dallas to meet with leaders from about 15 other churches across the country, to talk about how to make a difference in our world.  We got to the airport, and we found that one less seasoned member of our group didn’t realize that you actually need an id
to travel now a days.  It didn’t help that her last name is Abdelmalek and she has middle-eastern heritage.

But some really nice people working at American Airlines got her in.  She just had to go through a more thorough search and interview.  She almost flunked the interview because when they asked, Is this your final destination?  She looked at them kind of funny and said, “No I really want to go back home.”

You know what nobody wants an airport to be their final destination right?   Destinations matter.  Life gets really messed up when airports begin to think that they are the final destination.   Like I hope my flight gets cancelled in Philly — again, because concourse C, just feels like home…

Destinations matter.  When it comes to your life journey — where are you headed?  What is your destination?  It doesn’t just determine how your life will end, it determines the measure of life in the journey.