Welcome to Our Daily Bread. I'm Sheridan Voizzi, and I've called our reading today Life's Pilgrimage.

More than 200 million people from a variety of faiths undertake a pilgrimage each year.

For many throughout the ages, a pilgrim's task has been to journey

to a sacred place to receive some kind of blessing. It's been all about reaching the temple,

cathedral, shrine, or other destination where a blessing can be received. Britain's Celtic Christians,

however, saw pilgrimage differently. They set out directionless into the

wild, or let their boats drift wherever the oceans took them, pilgrimage for them, being about

trusting God in unfamiliar territory. Any blessing was found not at the destination, but along the journey.

Hebrews 11 was an important passage for the Celts. Since life in Christ

is about leaving the world's ways behind and trekking like foreigners to the city of God,

a pilgrimage echoed their life's journey. By trusting God to provide along their difficult,

untrodden path, the pilgrim grew the kind of faith

lived by the heroes of old.

What a lesson to learn, whether we physically trek or not.

For those who have trusted Jesus, life is a pilgrimage to God's heavenly country,

full of dark forests, dead ends, and trials.

As we journey through, may we not miss the blessing of

experiencing God's provision along the way.

Today's scripture reading is from Hebrews chapter 11, verses 13 to 16.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things

promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were

foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking

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