“We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.”

– B.J. Neblett

The resolution of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol finds Ebenezer Scrooge, the once shallow, isolated, and insatiable tycoon a changed man after a visit from three spirits in the middle of the night. When he awakes on Christmas morning, it’s as if he is seeing the world for the first time – and realizing how much it is a gift. If it were only so easy for us.

A Christmas Carol qualifies as a classic because its theme continues to challenge 21st Century readers about what is important in life; what is worthy of our pursuits. Dickens uses three visions of Scrooge’s past, present and future to reveal his core values and how they lead to emptiness. Middle school readers have been learning for decades that it is better to be a Bob Cratchit than an Ebenezer Scrooge.

Life isn’t that black and white, though. Many of the choices we are confronted with aren’t so clearly defined as money and success verses family and friends. And that is where we get stuck because I am betting most people aren’t going to blatantly choose Scrooge’s path, no matter how much they value wealth and success. Yet many still take it. And the joy and wonder of life becomes elusive.

But this isn’t about the evils of money or the deception of greed. Instead, it is the beginning of a conversation around recognizing what is important, what we value, and how we can recognize this in our daily decision making. Because it’s those seemingly small decisions that over a lifetime creates a Scrooge identity, a Cratchit identity, or a thousand other identities that bring value or vice to humanity.

Each of us are in process – we have the potential to always be growing, learning, and changing over a lifetime. In fact, to stop the process of becoming is to stop living. Physicists tell us the universe is ever expanding from the point in which it began, beginning with a huge release of energy that keeps expanding outward. If this is true, then it stands to reason we, like the universe, are made to continue on a path of growth, maturity, and discovery. For Christians, that path begins and ends with God.

Much of the first half of life is a journey toward finding purpose and security. Concern over what will I make of my life is also caught up in the question of whether the circumstances around me will allow for flourishing. Every day the path toward meaning and security presents us with choices. How we respond to these choices shape our worldview, and whether we know it or not, our view of God. So our response to the world around us creates the path we walk. And like Adam and Eve, our choices often hinge on whether we think that God is trustworthy.

We only begin to recognize this tension between trusting God’s wisdom and that of our own, through experience. We step across the threshold and embark on a journey, even when we aren’t clear where we are headed or why. The answers – and the motivation to keep walking – are available. But we won’t find them until we set out and embrace the journey along with the inevitable twists and turns, mountains and valleys, and yes, the wrong turns we make along the path.

The best of the Christian tradition invites each traveler to walk this path in the company of fellow travelers. (Those people Scrooge dismissed during most of his life.) With our model traveler being Jesus and our ever present guide, the mysterious Spirit of God, the challenges and the missteps along the way aren’t just understood as failure and success. They are a part of the process of being alive and experiencing the mercy and grace of a loving creator who is beckoning us to discover the joy of his creation. Each step along the way, as we discover God on our path, we also find we are more at home with our questions and even our imperfections.

Life doesn’t start only after we’ve got everything under control. What does it mean to be alive? Each day is a new discovery. Aren’t you eager to find out?