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A few days ago I bought Hosanna Wong’s spoken word album called Maps Boots & Other Ways We Get There. I have really loved listening to her pieces and particular ones like Maps, Tug O’ War and Someone Free have particularly stuck out for me. But today, I’m writing about Maps. (If you haven’t listened to her, go! Now!) After long searches on the internet I couldn’t find the lyrics to any of her poems so I have written it out below. Now, we all know I love travelling. I mean, not just to Australia or some place on the other side of the world. Even just a 30 minute road trip. So naturally, I question about where I am meant to be. Where God wants me in the future. I know where I want to go but where is best for me is a different question. I have a strange obsession with India and America. I don’t even know why.. but whether that has anything to do with my life I don’t know. I don’t even know where I want to study. I don’t even know what I want to study. Lets face it, I am only 16 but I basically don’t have a clue of what I want to do after I finish school. At church today, we had a Christmas service but in the middle of it, the pastor done a short sermon. Truthfully, I was probably day dreaming for most of it but what did stick in my head was “God will finish what he started.” God will finish what he started. That means, that I don’t have to worry because He began this journey so he can’t just leave me. That good news isn’t it? And when I listened to this poem. Well, it just reminded me of me. Read it and work out for yourself that you don’t have to worry. The end is my favorite. The answer 😀Â
‘When I’m asking, wheres the right place to be? He answers, simply, where you are seeking me.’
I have been sitting in this cafe for 2 and a half hours and I just got given a voucher for free Churros for two and one luxury hot chocolate drink on my next visit when I spend £5 or more. Win!Â
Enjoy the poem:
‘Growing up, I was obsessed with maps. In a sense I felt trapped so my knack to unwrap this confined box that contained me was to search excessively through blue and green paintings. Oceans outlining land mass master piece and I’d start picking where I would one day be. There’d be a X marking where I was and anywhere but right there would inevitably be next and as I got older this obsession grew greater, I collected travelling books, I had articles of other countries pinned to my bulletin boards. I collected used post cards and swore wherever the sender was from, one day I’d go there and I became possessed by the posing question, where? where was the right place for me? where am I supposed to be? Where is the location landscaping my destiny? and as time continued, these questions became more real to me. I had to start making some hard decisions, choosing occupations. While weighing destinations my fixation never ceased. I prayed to God, ‘Where do you want me to be’? determined not to make a wrong move and certain to take a false step I had maps and globes filled with options and I had to go to the right place next. Upon my probing I came across a passage written by a man named Paul. And while he was preaching the gospel the government took him captive and right from where he was, he said this, ‘I have learned what it is to have little, I have learned what it is to have plenty and I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. My first thought from reading that is, Paul you are in prison but I learned quickly that it isn’t about the bars placed around him. It wasn’t about the cells that restrained him. He was in the right place because of the state his heart was in. He was listening to God. He was pursuing the Kingdom. He was growing in his faith. He was in the right place because God was there with him. And I realized that the soul of my feet were stepping on, the place my legs were standing on wasn’t actually as important as where my heart was. I had spent more seconds congressing road maps than soaking in scripture, correcting the traps my soul was in. I had put globes on pedastools worshiping the world instead of the one who came to the world, to save it from its pedastools of sin. I’ve obsessed over every job, every move, every option consumed with worry that a d-tour would destroy me and I’ve idolized the idea of a perfect destination and I knew exactly where on the map my X was located but when I looked at my heart, where I really was, I just wasn’t certain. No, I was not where Paul was, placed inside of a physical prison but it was my soul, it was my spirit I was allowing to be held captive. Its time for me to re-direct my questions. Yes, I should be asking where but where should my heart be? Where is the right place for my mind to be? Where is my spiritual walk supposed to be? Where is the location of my knees landscaping my relationships intimacy? And understanding that Gods answer is not found on a map. When I am here asking, Wheres the right place to be? He answers, simply, where you are seeking me.’
