The Journey. What If It’s Not About Being “Better”?

By Bekah Siau

This book is something that emerged through countless conversations with friends and students about their own personal journey with Jesus. This book has been a response to the questions that have come up from those conversations as I have fought to find solid footing to ground me. If you are struggling with the pressure to “be a better Christian” or be better at dealing with your sin, shame, or missteps, this book is for you. It is not answers as much as it is someone coming alongside of you in your questions and journeying with you towards truth. What if it’s not about being a better Christian someday, but more about the journey and what you learn along the way?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664240889

Bekah Siau

Bekah Siau has served on staff with Young Life, an international ecumenical Christian outreach organization for 12 years in three different locations - Rockland County, NY (2008-2012), United States Military Academy at West Point, NY (2012-2019), and now in Bucks County PA (2019-present). She is a graduate of Nyack College, and has a Masters of Professional Studies in Pastoral Counseling from Alliance Theological Seminary.  She has taught many things from art, music to swimming and snowboarding. Her favorite things are running, being outdoors, road trips, lavender latte, and creating spaces for people to connect. She considers herself to be a life-long learner, and enjoys writing, and speaking to teenagers helping them discover who they are and who God says they are.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 Bekah Siau.

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Scripture quotations marked ESV taken from The Holy Bible, English

Standard Version® (ESV®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a

publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4089-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4088-9 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/14/2021

CONTENTS

The Journey

I. The Beginnings

1     Altars, Monuments And Tattoos

2     Who Taught You To Pretend?

3     Seasons

4     Pursued And Pursuit

II. The Whys

5     Questions

6     Merry Christmas Anyways

7     Wheat And Weeds

8     The Beauty Of Failure

9     Patience And Process

III. Deeper Grace

10   Standards And Expectations

11   Actions And Heart

12   Entitled. What Do We Deserve?

13   Thorns And Tacks

14   Ashamed And Unashamed

IV. The Way Ahead

15   Satisfied And Desires

16   Home And Homeward

17   Jesus Is Better

18   Transitions

19   Counting Things

20   Following Jesus

About The Author

THE JOURNEY

Letters I’ve been writing to myself.

I grew up surrounded by engineers. One of our main childhood books that I remember was that massive The Way Things Work¹ book. Many of the tell me a story of when you were little had something to do about engines, or electrical rewiring shenanigans. We were constantly inventing things as kids - building tree-forts, attaching wagons to Big Wheel bikes, testing and pushing the limits of nature and physics. While I could never quite wrap my head around the math and science end of things, my brain consistently moves towards a hands on experience of understanding how things work. I still don’t understand sound waves, and my dad is an audio engineer. I’ve found myself found myself saying a lot I don’t know all the things, but, my dad, he knows all the things. I’ve focused my energy on people, relationships, psychology and religious studies. It’s funny though, I still come back to the childhood fascination of But how does it work? and apply it to faith and following Jesus. I don’t want to just know it on paper, I want people to practically experience it and understand how it might by fully realized in their lives if they choose to say yes to following Jesus.

What if the way it works is more about a journey than a destination? The underlying theme throughout this book is the idea of the journey over the destination, and the process of becoming over the end result. In a world of self help books and instant gratification, what if the slow way is the better way? What if success is more about who you are becoming along the way than accomplishing something noteworthy? My hope is that along the journey of this book you might contemplate some of the following questions - What does it look like to not have to please other people? To be free to journey towards Jesus without having to fit some mold? What makes being Christian deeper than a title and an idealistic way of living? What does it look like to simply follow Jesus instead of constantly worrying if we are doing it right?

Why write a book? Why go through the work and the process? I think the biggest question I kept asking myself as I considered that question was, is this something that is just for me, or is this something that could be useful and encouraging to others? This book found its beginnings in unpublished blog posts, typed up at all hours of the night in an attempt to merge life experiences and spiritual truths and navigate a way forward. Certain life experiences and conversations wove their way into my spiritual journey in a new way. Is this just for me, or is is something that is helpful for an audience of readers? The answer came as I started to put things into written words, and as I continued to have conversations with others. These thoughts, ideas, questions, pivotal moments in my life just kept finding their way out and into conversations and seemed to be applicable and helpful not only to myself but also to others.

I discovered this quote late in the process of this book, but I thought it summarized a lot of what I hope to say.

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. Paul Coelho

How we grow, more or less depends on how we hear things and how we internalize what we hear. I would love love for those who read this book to listen to what they hear and to pay attention to how they hear it. Consider who is the Jesus that you are following or considering following? And what journey has he invited you into?

I’ll often mention Young Life in my writing. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Young Life is an international Christian organization that serves as a relational outreach to adolescents. You can find out more at www.younglife.org.

Be available to the journey of this book. Sit with it, question it, read it alone or read it with others. God is in the process of growing all of us. I invite you into this journey and into this conversation. The way I write is conversational, and is structured like a bunch of different ideas that connect and relate to each other and often look at the same core ideas from different perspectives. I hope that it doesn’t detract from the message but rather draws you in and helps you see each idea from a few different angles. The first half of the book lays the foundations and introduces a few core ideas and the second half builds on those and digs a little deeper. It’s my perspective that each chapter in this book progressively gets better. So, if you don’t like a chapter keep reading.

These are the sermons I’ve been preaching to myself over the last few years, and I hope that they speak truth to you on your journey as well.

I. The Beginnings

Where to start? What are important markers? What

are important motivations? Take into account the

monuments and landmarks that have brought you this

far. Be willing to be real, embrace the season you are

in, and give God the power and space to pursue you.

1

ALTARS, MONUMENTS

AND TATTOOS

What do I want to build my life around?

I run sometimes, when the weather is nice and when it fits into my shower schedule. I enjoy it, I’ve even mustered up some discipline to train for and run 3 half marathons. While running I tend to get bored, so I try and create stories about the things I pass - people, landmarks, and scenery. I’ve noticed a lot of benches on my runs. I often wonder who actually takes the time to sit on them, I’m usually running past them, so I don’t stop. Benches are meant for pausing, for observing scenery, to create moments of rest. I often wonder, who gets to decide which bench goes where, and which direction it faces? At West Point, where I previously lived, there are a plethora of benches overlooking what many people call the million dollar view of the Hudson River.. One cannot help but to stop, sit, ponder, and reflect on the beauty facing back at them. These monuments and benches caused me to wonder about the significance of placing space in our spiritual lives to pause, reflect and remember certain things? What is worth remembering? Upon what concrete things are we framing our lives?

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Back in the fall of 2015 there was a weekend that I attended homecoming at my alma mater. I think homecomings are weird. Why is it so important to come back? To return? To remember? Even the name is strange, why do they call it homecoming? Was college really my home? Mine doesn’t feel so much like coming home, but it is nonetheless a place of significance. I do believe that college is one of the places that probably most shapes us into the person we become in adulthood, but is it home? I don’t think so, it’s not a place that you should stay forever. There is something significant about revisiting landmarks in our lives, and there is something about establishing monuments of remembrance. Places to return years later, to remember what it used to be, who you were, and what sort of events took place during that time. People often say, when I was here….. or it’s so different now… or remember the time…, and We were so young….

It was about this time that one of my friends returned to West Point. He had just spent the last almost 6 months of his life enduring the most difficult military training that the Army has to offer - Ranger School. He mentioned that he left the Ranger graduation ceremony, surrounded by the family and friends that had prayed for him and encouraged