Where are we going?
may take them a long time to get there. Someone else might be a lot closer to Tirana, and have a new car, but be travelling the other way along the road, and if you ask them "Where are you going?" and they said "Well, I'm close to Tirana?" that would not really answer your question.
In our journey of faith, it is similar. You might not know a great deal about theology, and you might feel that you are ignorant of many things about the Christian faith, but you can still be heading towards God. You can also be an educated theologian and have read a great deal about theology, and yet be travelling away from God. Stalin studied in a theological seminary, yet he was going away from God and became an atheist, and tried to force many others to be atheists.
In describing what happened to my friend Johannes, I may also have made it sound simple and easy. I can tell another story to illustrate how simple it can be, yet it is not easy. This is one you may have heard of, because it was published in a journal somewhere. In the Soviet Union there was a group of geologists doing a survey in a remote area in Siberia, and they were camped in the forest. They heard people approaching, and then heard voices. The people who had approached were the security police, the KGB, with a group of prisoners, and apparently they did not realise they were so close to the camp. And the geologists overheard. A voice said, "Say that God does not exist, or you will be shot." There was a reply, "God exists", and they heard a shot. And this was repeated something like 60 times. The same question, and the same reply.
It may be simple, but it is not always easy. There are only two choices. As Jesus said, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters". There is no room for a vague or ambiguous answer. You cannot reply "I am not sure whether God exists or not".
But often it is not as clear as that. We are not always faced with a choice that makes us turn right around and go directly away from God. It is rather just a small change of direction, one that is still pointing in the
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