As much as I love to travel, I am reminded by a line in the movie, Anna and the King, which says, “Roads are not meant for destinations, but for journeys.” This may sound like some Confucian adage but the Siamese king, though he had many wives, sounded like a sage in saying that. We are always looking ahead for the next big thing to cross our paths yet we forget how the process to arriving to that big moment refines us along the way.

I have long wanted to become a lawyer and successful writer. To this day, I am neither. I am still in my senior year in law school, expecting a miracle to graduate by March of next year and take the bar exams. My writing career has quite not taken off either. Up to date, I am still on the lookout for better writing gigs—those that pay well for quality work. I do not want to build a reputation for being overworked and underpaid.

There are just days when I wake up and before my feet hit the floor, I already find myself in a battle for stability—escalating bills, making up for less study time, meeting deadlines—which I find to be a constant struggle. Perhaps for others, this may sound trite. Your own battle may be against losing your home to mortgage, getting canned, losing your spouse, securing your child. These concerns may be endless and they nag quite a bit. They pester your ears. So what should be done?

Everything happens according to the choices we make. This I find especially true in my circumstances. I still wake up with the constant fear of seeing my fears happen before my very eyes. But what worked for me may work for you. I chose to see things through the eyes of faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 12:1).” I chose to see my worries by faith. Did I choose to confess good things? No. Better than that. I chose to declare the best things are about to happen, even when every part of me was wagering against my campaign. Did I start seeing the confessions I have made? For the first time in many years, I topped one final exam and I am being considered for a better-paying gig. So the answer is yes, although one step at a time.

I hope sharing these things will not make you think that I am formidable or this is another success story. The message that I hope to leave you with is what we are hoping for is not the culmination of our joy. Rather, it is the struggles that we face each day, how we respond to it, and how we become stronger people—the journey itself—is our prize. God is not after our immediate gratification. He seeks to perfect us in a fashion we find most undesirable, so that in this lost and lonely world, we truly become his ambassadors of grace.