Arrivals, Checkpoints, and Rest Stops
I love a challenge. I love something that calls more out of me than I think I have.
Running alone pushes my fitness. Running in an organized race makes me faster. Winning a game, finishing a race, hitting a personal or professional goal — all of it takes ordinary me and squeezes a little more out.
Sometimes that squeeze hurts. Sometimes it’s embarrassing. Often it feels vulnerable before it resolves into something better.
I once heard Matthew McConaughey say, “I’m learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.” That’s growth. That’s resilience.
But that same principle can work for us — or against us.
It can build grit. Or it can slowly train us to accept sin, dysfunction, and exhaustion as normal.
It becomes dangerous when, in the name of grit, we keep grinding with the hope that one day we will arrive. And when we arrive, we will finally rest.
The problem? Our definition of arrival will never happen in this world.
We tell ourselves we’ll rest:
When the list is complete
When all our family members are okay
When everyone is happy with us
When we finally have enough
For many of us, the illusion of arrival is rooted in quiet assumptions:
“I should be okay by now.”
“Once I arrive, I won’t have to feel vulnerable.”
“Mature people aren’t learners.”
“People can’t know that I make mistakes.”
“I need to protect what I’ve been given.”
Jesus described this mentality in the Parable of the Talents. Three men were entrusted with different amounts. The one who received a single talent was afraid. Afraid of vulnerability. Afraid of loss. So he hid it.
When his master returned, he proudly presented what he had preserved.
He was rebuked.
The others had risked what they were given. They invested. They acted. They lived exposed.
The arrival mentality whispers that one day we’ll get to a place where we no longer have to learn, grow, or risk.
The gospel tells a different story.
The Sabbath interrupts the grinder in us and says:
You get to rest — regardless of how your talents performed this week.
Because we are fully accepted, we are free to risk fully.
Our value is not in how our talents perform, but in whose we are.
Rest, recovery, renewal, and hope are never more than six days away.
When life is about arrival, you can’t enjoy the view. You’re always chasing the next summit.
When life is a journey, you can savor the scenery and trust that you’ll arrive when you arrive.
So instead of trying to arrive, what if you planned to celebrate the Sabbath regardless of the return on your risks?
Instead of grinding toward some imaginary finish line, what if you paused at the next mile marker and gave thanks?
If you’re not dead, you’re not done.
Keep pressing forward.
Let goals motivate you.
Celebrate when you hit them.
And rest — before you think you deserve to.
