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Where Are You Going?

The journey of life

by Claire Law

Suitable for Whole School (Sec)

Aims

To reflect upon physical journeys and the journey of life.

Preparation and materials

  • You will need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (Where Are You Going?) and the means to display them.
  • Have available the YouTube video ‘The Miracle Maker – Road to Emmaus’ and the means to show it during the assembly. It is 3.22 minutes long and is available at: https://youtu.be/tKmK9bMZfOk

Assembly

  1. Show Slide 1.

    Ask the students whether any of them have any travel plans for the near future.

    Point out that the summer holiday is a time when lots of us will be travelling to somewhere different from the place that we usually call home. In recent years, the idea of a staycation - a holiday based at home - has become popular. However, even this kind of holiday includes day trips, visiting places for fun and relaxation, often with family or friends.

  2. In today’s assembly, we are going to think about journeys. We will be considering both the kind of journey that we might take for a holiday, but also the larger journey that we are all on: the journey of life.

  3. Any physical journey has a starting point, and there is usually a destination in mind. Sometimes, the eventual destination is different from the initial plan. That can be half the fun of going on holiday: discovering all sorts of exciting places that we hadn’t known about or planned for. Along the way, all sorts can happen as we move from place to place.

  4. Show Slide 2.

    Point out that we often undertake journeys with other people such as friends and family members, or even pets. When we are young, even short journeys can sometimes feel long. However, as we grow older, if we adopt the right mindset, we can find ways to enjoy the experience of travelling as well as the eventual destination.

  5. Show Slide 3.

    Some journeys are frustrating due to travel delays, cancelled planes and trains or even getting lost. Sometimes, we have to accept that we are never going to make it to our intended destination.

  6. Show Slide 4.

    Travelling to a holiday destination has some comparisons with the wider journey of life: the journey that we make between the starting point of our birth and the end point of our death. Perhaps we have an idea about our goals and hopes for the future: what GCSE options do we want to choose? Do we want to go to university one day? What career might we choose?

    Perhaps we don’t know the answers to these questions yet. Even if we do, the plans that we are making today may well change along the way. There will be people who are our companions as we journey through life. Sometimes, we will have adventures. At other times, we may feel like we are going round in circles or without any clear direction. However, as we go through life, we journey towards a future.

  7. Show Slide 5.

    The journey of life can feel confusing at times. When this happens, the good news is that we are not alone. In the Bible, in Luke’s Gospel, there is a description of a journey that two of the disciples took. They were walking the seven-mile distance from the city of Jerusalem to the town of Emmaus. However, it was also a journey in a bigger sense: it helped them to make more sense of their life journey.

    The context of the Bible passage is important. The two disciples set out on this walk two days after Jesus had died on the cross. They were feeling sad and disappointed after giving three years of their life to following Jesus. They were also confused by reports that Jesus had risen from the dead: they just couldn’t get their heads round the idea. They were wondering how the reports could make sense and who or what they could rely on any more.

    As they walked and tried to support each other in their confusion, they met a stranger on the road who seemed not to have heard about any of the recent events. The Bible passage tells us that the disciples were unsure and had lots of questions. Their journey helped them to make more sense of life.

    Let’s watch a short video that shows us this journey.

    Show the YouTube video ‘The Miracle Maker – Road to Emmaus’ from 0.49 minutes to 3.20 minutes.

  8. Show Slide 6.

    As the disciples chatted to the stranger they had met on the road, they didn’t realize that they were speaking with the risen Jesus.

    In the Bible, we read: ‘As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.’ (Luke 24.15-16)

    As the two disciples walk towards Emmaus, they don’t understand the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. They don’t yet appreciate that Jesus is risen. They don’t yet see how this event will shape and change their life journey
    .

  9. Show Slide 7.

    However, by the end of this Bible passage, their eyes had been opened and they had recognized the stranger as the risen Jesus.

    In the Bible, we read: ‘When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.’ (Luke 24.30-31)


  10. The disciples’ journey of life is directly affected by their realization that Jesus is alive. Following this, the disciples took many physical journeys, taking the message about Jesus’ death and resurrection to people in various parts of the world. 

    The disciples came to accept that their journey in this life was a journey towards a life after death in heaven, where they believed that they would live forever with Jesus. The end point was no longer death; in fact, they understood their existential journey to have no end! This belief, that Jesus had died to take away people’s sins and had shown power over death by rising from the dead, became the map that helped the disciples to navigate the journey of the rest of their lives.

Time for reflection

With this in mind, let’s take a few minutes to reflect upon our own journey in life.

- Where are we going in our lives?
- Who is our companion on that journey?
- How can we find ways to enjoy the journey itself as well as the destination?
- What can we fall back on when we become lost or confused on that journey
?

Let’s consider an example.

Show Slide 8. 

Let’s call this child Alex. What could be his life story so far? Let’s consider those questions again and see how they could apply to his story.

Alex is just ten years old, but he already has an idea of what he wants from life. When he is asked, ‘Where are you going in life?’ he answers confidently, ‘I want to pass my GCSEs and A levels, and then head to university to study biology. One day, I want to work in a job helping to preserve the habitat of endangered animals.’

When Alex is asked, ‘Who is your companion on this journey?’ he says, ‘I love my dad. He’s a great role model. I have my friends, Zainab and Chelsey, too and we look out for each other.’ Alex also speaks about his belief in God. He trusts that God will show him the paths to take in life

The next question that Alex is asked is, ‘How can you find ways to enjoy the journey itself as well as the destination?’ In response, Alex mentions taking time each day to reflect on what he is grateful for, what he has liked about the day and what he feels has not gone so well. He also talks about enjoying sport as a way to relax.

What ten-year-old Alex could not predict was that he would face a significant challenge a few years later. When Alex was 13, one of his friends died, and he found himself questioning the point of life. He was angry, and felt like giving up on his university hopes. It was as if his world had ended.

Over the next couple of years, Alex’s friends became a crucial support. He also found prayer to be helpful – prayers that sometimes included tears, and also expressed Alex’s anger and pain. For a while, Alex doubted whether God even existed, or whether he loved or cared about Alex. He met with the school counsellor, but found it hard at first to talk about how he felt. However, in time, Alex started to open up. He began to look forward to the counsellor listening and being there for him on the journey.

By the time Alex reached Year 11, he knew that he had learnt a great deal. He wanted to give something back, so he became a mentor at school, working with younger students who were going through a tough time. Alex changed his mind about university, and decided to apply for a course in psychology, rather than biology. He wanted to learn more about the human mind and how people process and deal with difficulty in life.

We can see that Alex’s journey through life began with some clear goals. There were twists and turns along the way, and also pain. Alex found companions to accompany him on his journey through life. Faith and a trust in God were part of the journey, even though life’s difficulties knocked his faith at times. The place where Alex ended up was not the place that he had originally set off for. Along the way, the journey had helped Alex to grow and develop as a person.

I wonder what Alex’s journey means to us? Do we see any similarities between our own journey and Alex’s? What do we need on our journey through life today? Who do we want as company for the journey?

Let’s use our time of prayer to bring our thoughts, reflections and feelings to God.

Prayer
Dear God,
We make many physical journeys in our lifetime:
Holidays, school trips and visits to see family and friends.
We also make a wider journey of growth and development throughout our lives.
Each moment is a step on a journey where we can learn more about ourselves, about our place in the world, about others and about you.
For those times when our journey through life is difficult, we pray for supportive people to be close to us.
Help us to sense that we do not walk alone.
For those times when we feel more certain about where we are going, help us to be good companions to others.
Remind us to pause and enjoy the journey as well as keeping our eyes focused on the goals that matter to us
.
Amen.

Song/music

‘Summer holiday’ by Cliff Richard, available at: https://youtu.be/OHOk9bZDssA (2.15 minutes long) 

Publication date: August 2022   (Vol.24 No.8)    Published by SPCK, London, UK.
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