I logged onto the Elevation Church YouTube channel this afternoon for today’s worship experience. When the time came for the sermon, Pastor Steven Furtick shared a sermon titled This Time Around. It was a good sermon but one main thing he said stayed with me: AI — Arrival Illusion.
Not Artificial Intelligence. Arrival Illusion.
He talked about someone in his thirties, a friend, who was looking forward to being in his forties because, in his mind, life would somehow be better then. Pastor Steven is already in his forties, and so he could see something this young man couldn’t yet see.
Sometimes, we create an imaginary version of the future in our heads… We tell ourselves, When I get there, things will be better.
When I get married.
When I have children.
When the children grow up.
When I get that job.
When I make more money.
When I turn forty.
When I build my house.
When this particular problem is over.
Then we arrive… And there is another problem waiting.
That was the part that really got me.
He said; “No version of your life is frustration-free. No version of your future is struggle-free.”
There is no arrival point where everything suddenly becomes perfect.
He called it AI because sometimes the future we imagine is just that… an illusion. It looks beautiful and perfect from a distance, almost too perfect to be real. Like those strange, impossibly neat AI-generated videos or photos where everything seems to happen or look exactly as it should.
He referenced the book of Joshua, chapter 6.
The Israelites had arrived at the Promised Land, but there was still a wall by the time they got to Jericho.
There had been several hitches along the way for the Israelites…
Egypt > Wilderness > Plains of Moab > Jordan River > Promised Land > Jericho.
Every stage was not easy, and at Jericho, they had to walk around the city walls… Again… And again…. And again.
Seven times… And the walls fell.
There was no shortcut around the wall simply because they had arrived at the place God had promised them.
Whether it’s a wilderness or it is a wall, we must not assume we are lost simply because we have encountered another obstacle. We have only arrived at “another wall”…
What wall have you encountered? What wall are you currently facing? Fear, Depression, Anxiety, Addiction, sickness, Financial difficulties, Guilt, Self Doubt…
…Maybe the instruction is not to turn around or stand still… Maybe it is to keep walking.
