A Visit with the Joneses

Carol Jones Saint: Hello, hello there. Come right in to enjoy another visit with the Joneses at Home Sweet Home. As I look around the living room, I see that a number of you have traveled quite a distance to be here, and we're so glad that you have arrived.

You know if your household is anything like Home Sweet Home, every day in the mail you receive brochures that are urging you to travel many, many places. Sometimes it's to Australia or maybe the Bahamas, or Israel, or Mexico, or maybe it's up to Alaska. In this visit, we're going to be thinking about traveling. We're glad that you've come, and the trio is going to be singing an old-time favorite, "I Feel Like Traveling On." You come and travel with us.

Bert: Well, of course, that's the whole point of travel brochures, to make you feel like traveling on.

Carol Jones Saint: Oh my, and it sort of really depends on the time of the year where you go, because in other parts of the world, when it's summer here, it's winter there, and when it's summer there, it's winter here. So it's just an all-year-round thing, isn't it?

Bert: That's right. You notice this even in the department stores or the clothing stores. Nowadays, because people travel any time of year to so many different places, you can buy white clothing any time of year, light colors, and so forth.

Carol Jones Saint: In the wintertime, people are traveling to Florida and they want to be able to wear light clothing. In fact, Bert, isn't it true that most of the men's suits today are year-round suits they call them?

Bert: That's right, very, very true. Well, in one of her columns, Abigail Van Buren listed some very interesting suggestions for the art of travel. Actually, these suggestions had been sent to her by a friend or one of her readers who thought that everybody else would enjoy these tips, too.

Carol Jones Saint: Well, the article, Bert, is especially interesting because you and I do a lot of traveling to services, and many times people will say to us, "How can you stand it to virtually live out of a suitcase a good part of the year?" So maybe some of these suggestions might help us, too.

Bert: I'm sure they just may. Now, my services since my illness, since cancer, I have enjoyed the services very much. The services have been a blessing to me, an inspiration. But the traveling can become a problem. The trips are rather tiring.

So here we have these suggestions, and we'll just run over them quickly. There are 10 of them, and they give good ideas for traveling. Then we're going to go back over them and spiritualize them for our Christian journey in this old world. First, travel lightly. Remember, you're not traveling for people to see you. Most of the time, you just need to take less with you. Travel lightly. I like that.

Carol Jones Saint: Travel expectantly. Every place you visit is a surprise package waiting to be opened. Untie the strings with an expectation of high adventure.

Bert: That's a good idea. Then third, travel hopefully. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "To travel hopefully is better than to arrive." That's interesting.

Carol Jones Saint: Number four, travel humbly. Visit people and places with respect for their traditions and ways of life, as different as they may be from your own.

Bert: Fifth, travel courteously. Consideration for your fellow travelers and for all you meet along the way will enhance your pleasure. I talked recently to a friend who had been on a tour, and she told about one person on that tour who ruined the tour for everybody because the actions were so discourteous.

Carol Jones Saint: Number six, travel gratefully. Show appreciation for the many things done by others for your enjoyment and comfort.

Bert: All right, seven, travel with an open mind. Leave your prejudices at home. That's a good idea.

Carol Jones Saint: Number eight, travel with curiosity. It's not how far you go, but how deeply you go that mines the gold of the experience. I guess that could be said for many people you visit in a city. We as travelers have come, and those who live there have maybe never visited some of the sites.

Bert: Very, very true. Then travel patiently. This is suggestion nine. Take the time to understand people. Take the time to see things. Learn a few words of another language, if only just to say hello and goodbye, and the natives will love you for it.

Carol Jones Saint: And apparently, Bert, if you fly, you better learn to fly patiently.

Bert: Oh, I guess so. And number 10, travel with the spirit of a world citizen. You'll discover people are basically much the same the world over. Appoint yourself an ambassador of goodwill wherever you go.

So these are good ideas, and they cause us to say we feel like traveling on with the Lord Jesus Christ. For actually, as we study God's word, we discover that the Christian journey is a journey. It's a trip. The fact of the matter is, as the Apostle Paul makes very, very clear over and over again, and especially in Philippians 3:20, where he says our citizenship is in heaven.

We travel in this world, but heaven is our home. So it's important for you and me to realize over and over and over again that heaven is our home and we're only here temporarily. Our citizenship is in heaven. That's Philippians 3:20.

I'm but a stranger here, but heaven is my home. Earth is a desert drear, heaven is my home. Danger and sorrow stand round me on every hand. Heaven is my fatherland. Heaven is my home.

But since we're traveling here on earth, it would behoove us to follow these rules and in a spiritual sense, follow them often. Traveling here, remember first of all to travel lightly. I'm but a stranger here and heaven is my home. We travel too heavily most of the time. We gather too many things of earth because, as strangers here who can say with the Apostle Paul, "For our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." In the light of that, we need to learn the secret of traveling lightly.

Carol Jones Saint: Wasn't that the story, Bert, of the Israelites when they were waiting to take the journey? They were to be all ready. Nothing was to be holding them back. Whenever that signal came, they were to be ready to go.

Bert: They were to be ready. I'm reminded that the old-time Methodist preachers were supposed to be ready to move at any time. In the early days in Methodism, they moved quickly. Likewise, in the Salvation Army, the officers are told, at least in the old days, that they should be able to move within a week's notice.

We are to travel lightly because, after all, not one of us knows amidst the storms of life how long we'll be here or how short. The call may come very suddenly, and then it will behoove us to have traveled lightly. And then what's that second rule, Carol?

Carol Jones Saint: That second one, travel expectantly. That's very interesting because sometimes people travel and then they say, "Oh, that's a bore. Oh, I don't want to go there." Well, that's no way to travel.

Bert: To know the real joy of life and living is to travel expectantly. No one can travel with such a thrill in life, the daily duties of life. No one can live life with such expectancy as the child of God. After all, Jesus said to his disciples over and over again, "Be ye therefore ready."

So we are to travel expectantly. We do not know what the next moment will hold. We do not know what opportunities the next hour shall hold. So we travel. And then, of course, in Titus 2:12 and 13, we read that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. We travel expectantly because we do not know one of these hours even the Lord may come for his own. What a joy to travel expectantly, and I hope you're doing just that.

Carol Jones Saint: A trumpet may sound at any moment!

Bert: Next, the suggestion is given in the Abigail Van Buren column: travel hopefully. Well, there's nobody in all the world can travel with as much hope as the child of God.

Carol Jones Saint: Oh yes, even when things look dark and everything goes wrong, there still is hope.

Bert: What hope is ours! Psalm 31:24: "Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord." Again, in Psalm 42:11: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God."

You know, if we could get more Christian believers to follow the words of Psalm 42:11, we could do a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists out of business.

Carol Jones Saint: My oh my, you better give that again.

Bert: You as a Christian don't need to be in the depths of despair, for you can hope in God. So when the psalmist said, "Why art thou, my soul, disquieted within me?" then came the answer, "Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him."

Then we read in 1 John 3:3, speaking of the blessed hope of the coming of the Lord: "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." That blessed hope. Then Colossians 1:27: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

If you're a Christian, then you have hope more than anyone in all the world because Christ in you is the hope of glory. You can sing and say, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." All right, we're up to number four. What is that rule for travel?

Carol Jones Saint: Number four is to travel humbly and to have respect for other people and their traditions and ways of life as you travel.

Bert: All right, it is a good rule for the Christian to travel humbly. What doth the Lord require of thee? We read back in the ancient prophet, but to walk humbly with thy God. So the rule of humility is certainly the rule of the Christian.

Proverbs 16:19: "Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud." That's good to remember. Then remember the words of Jesus, Matthew 18:4: "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Then in Matthew 23:12, the words of Jesus: "And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." Then the words of James 4:6: "But he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but he giveth grace unto the humble."

My friend, there's no place for a proud Christian. No. To be a Christian, to be walking the Christian road, is indeed to walk with humility. So it's good advice: travel humbly. You've left the land of sin and death, and you're headed toward heaven. As you go, you travel humbly with the Lord. All right, we continue in our traveling suggestions. Before we sing another stanza of that old song, what's the next one, Carol?

Carol Jones Saint: The next one is to travel gratefully, to show appreciation for the many things that are done for you. You know, it's sad today to realize that there are so many who never have learned to say thank you for many kind things that are done—perhaps a special meal that's been prepared or a get-together that was arranged. Show appreciation.

Bert: Right, and of course how grateful we have to be to the Lord for all his blessings to us as we travel on this earth. No wonder we read in 2 Thessalonians, "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you." It's the will of God that his people should be thankful people as they travel the way of life.

Also, it helps to be thankful in all things when you can live life saying, "This, whatever circumstance it is that has come my way, it is somehow in the scope of his will for me." All right, here's another rule: travel courteously. Consider your fellow travelers on the way.

Well, that's a good rule not only for secular traveling, but it's a good rule on the Christian road of life. We read in the scripture that live peaceably, as much as possible, with all men. That is right in the same verse that says without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.

We are to try to live peacefully with all people, as much as is possible, realizing that there are some people that even the Lord couldn't live peacefully with. Then remember the words of Romans 12:10: "Be kindly affectioned one to another."

Bert: Yes, this is very important on the road of life. My daddy used to remind us to be kind because everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Carol Jones Saint: In other words, when you're traveling down the highway and that car in front of you gets stalled, you don't get out and shoot the driver.

Bert: That's what they do out in California, I hear.

Carol Jones Saint: Well, that's not what you do on the way to heaven.

Bert: No. In traveling the road of life as a Christian, you know, you and I are to do our best to help others all along that way. Well, there are many who would try to stop your progress on the road, but you keep on keeping on anyway.

You know, it's impossible to travel without money. It's impossible to have a radio ministry like this about the subject of travel without money.

Carol Jones Saint: Well, let's say that most trips, especially if you're going abroad, are very, very expensive, and you may have to save a whole lifetime to be able to take one of those trips.

Bert: That's so very true. So we invite you to share with us in this travel trip by means of radio. We invite you to share by sending your radio gift to A Visit with the Joneses Incorporated, Box 575, Erie, Pennsylvania 16512.

Incidentally, it's nice as we pick up the mail day after day to once in a while receive a postcard or letter from one of our traveling listeners who's in the Holy Land or in Europe or South America, and you remember us and say, "Wish you were here."

All right, we continue in our traveling suggestions. Next comes the suggestion to travel with an open mind. Leave your prejudices at home. As you and I are Christians traveling the road of life, we need to remember God's word says, "Whosoever will may come."

The gospel is for everybody. We must travel with an open mind. Not just the rich, not just the poor, but it's for whosoever will may come. Not just for the thin, not just for the fat, but for whosoever will may come. Not just for the black, not just for the white, not just for any other color of skin, but whosoever will may come. We travel the road of life with an open mind.

Next, the suggestion that we should travel with curiosity, with an interest. So I'm convinced that we ought to study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not to be ashamed. That indicates progress. Also, we read in God's word in 1 John that we are to walk in the light as he gives the light. That shows curiosity and progress.

Then we're to travel patiently as we travel the Christian life. "Be ye also patient," James 5:8 says, "and establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draws nigh." Over and over, we're exhorted to be patient day after day, and to walk with patience and to travel with patience. It's hard to do, to learn the art of patience. An old man wrote to me and said, "I'm still in the school of patience." Well, we've got to be there.

Last, the suggestion is: travel with the spirit of a world citizen. Travel with the spirit of a world citizen. So the Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians that we are ambassadors in this world for Jesus Christ. We're strangers here on business for the King, ambassadors for him. May you be a good ambassador for Jesus Christ as you travel the road of life.

That's the message of the world traveler. That's the message of the Christian traveler who travels as a world citizen, an ambassador for the Lord Jesus Christ. We hope it's been helpful to you and we hope you will join us in going traveling on day after day. Will you travel?