The Map on my Wall

As I write this, I sit here looking at a map hanging on my wall of Charleston Harbor and Approaches. For those of you who don't know, I live in South Carolina and have a good deal of family roots in the Charleston area, as most all of my family who emigrated to America after the sixteenth century came through this port. I love the Charleston area and the diversity you can find there. One 300-year old building stands next to a newly constructed place of business. On the outskirts you find plantations, and in others you find the solitude of undeveloped coastal paradise nestled along rivers and the intercoastal waterway. On some beaches you find awesome waves, and it's hard to beat the endless supply of fish and shrimp coming in daily.

Looking at this map tonight, though, different thoughts come to mind. I wonder what it was like when a map like this wasn't to be found anywhere. When Columbus set-out to find India, not knowing two huge continents stood in his way. When Lewis and Clark set-out to reach the Pacific, knowing that there was an ocean to reach, but not knowing how far or what kind of terrain they would cross. When Hernando de Soto hiked not to far from where I sit to discover the unknown.

Can you imagine the wonder? I try to experience this every time I travel... finding something new, venturing into somewhere that I don't know exactly where I am. It's not quite the same, as there are few places above water and below the heavens that aren't mapped out yet. That leaves me imagining what it might have been like...

To be sailing around the tip of Africa for the first time to find a sea-route to India...

To set-out on three not-so-grand boats, when everyone else is sure you're going to fall off the earth, to seek a shorter route, and then making the greatest discovery of land ever made...

To set-out West to cross fields and forests, cross the mighty Rocky mountains and the swift rivers flowing Westward in search of the largest ocean on earth...

Can you imagine? How awesome is it to discover something new -- to go through uncharted territory and be amazed by everything you see?

You see, the trick is, you can always look at it like this. Every time I look up at the map on my wall, I think about something different. Every time I drive from my house to Jacksonville and back, I see new things along the way. I could see the same thing every time, but I choose not to. I make a conscious decision to be in wonder... to continually be amazed by the awesomeness of the world God has created around us.

We are all explorers, charting our way through uncharted territory. No one has lived our life before... and no one has seen God's creation the exact same way we see it. Be in wonder. Discover. It really is an awesome thing... because with Him, map or no map, you'll never really ever be lost.

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