A good friend of mine, Bob Frederickson, is writing a travel book called Flying Coach To Nirvana. I stole his title for this sermon because I want to do simply what he took 400 pages to accomplish. His book is a collection of essays about visits he has made to Gabon in Africa, the West Indies, and on and on. He thinks of his trips as simple, populist, and personal; his point is that anyone can travel. Traveling is an art that doesn't take big bucks as much as it takes big dreams.
His tone is the same way I think about the lament in today's letter to Timothy. The writer says he has been poured, spent, done, and still God stuck with him. We travel through life and we are all poured and spent. Just think about how you feel when you return home after a long trip: you are both filled and empty…