Long day's journey into light: many times in our lives we are asked to walk paths we find painful or pointless. But just as when Jesus asked his disciples to set out on their own, we find the answers lie further on up the road.

MOST DAYS, JESUS JUST WASN'T THIS ORGANIZED. Although there may have been a grand plan out there that he and his Father consulted during their daily communion in prayer, the blueprint was largely lost on the disciples.

It seemed to them that they had been wandering randomly, preaching and teaching and healing in little towns all over the region. Nazareth. Capernaum. Nain. Bethsaida. Through a grain field, across a lake, into Gentile territory and back again. Up the mountain and down the mountain. Into town and out before there's trouble.

If they were making progress, they weren't sure how to measure it. If Jesus had a goal, it was Greek to them. And then came the day when Jesus told them plainly that the destination was Jerusalem, and the journey to that city would begin at once.

That's when he got organized and appointed the 72. How odd it was to have these others formally admitted into the ranks of the 12. Up to now, if Jesus wanted for anything, he turned to the 12 and they got the job done. Most of the time, of course, it wasn't anything more complicated than scouting out some lunch. But now he had multiplied their number by six and paired them off for a more expansive mission. "Go on your way," Jesus told them.

This might have been a little confusing. Normally, Jesus summoned people in the opposite direction: "Come follow me." And he had taught them that he was the way. But now it seemed he wanted them to go another way, their way. Jesus had been their guide for so long now that to choose their own path seemed strange and a bit unsettling. Where exactly did Jesus expect them to go?

Maybe some of them remembered the day when the crowds, angered by the teaching they were hearing from Jesus, asked indignantly, "Who can accept this?" Certainly many couldn't; they went home and no longer counted themselves among his followers. At this point, Jesus turned to those who were left and asked, "Do you also want to leave?" Peter spoke for them all when he squared his shoulders and replied, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

THE TRUTH IS, THERE WERE DAYS WHEN THEY MIGHT HAVE liked to go home. It would have been nice to spend a few days with family and friends, boasting about their exploits and maybe exaggerating a bit their own roles in the miraculous events.

But ultimately they knew they were doing the right thing sticking with Jesus. Like Peter said, he had the words of eternal life, not to mention the power to do miracles. The power, perhaps, to turn the world upside down and transform life in an occupied country into something worth living again.

At the moment, though, the plan seemed less grand. Jesus was talking about a big harvest and a small labor force. He was asking them to go their way without money, supplies, or even shoes. All they had to offer was a boomerang sort of peace: if people were peaceful, they could keep it, but if they weren't, it would come right back. It was unusual for Jesus to be giving so many instructions. When they were simply following him, there wasn't so much to remember.

We 21st-century disciples sometimes make the same mistake these early followers of Jesus made. We think the instructions Jesus gave out are what are important to digest and remember. We forget the most important thing is to take the journey. As the saying on a hiker's T-shirt reads, "The journey is the destination." Getting there is mostly about going there. And if we don't set out, we'll never get anywhere.

The rest of what Jesus has to say about journey is just good advice. Don't take a lot of stuff with you, and don't rely on stuff to begin with. Possessions really get in the way when the way is full of grace.

As Mother Teresa used to say, even God cannot fill what is full. If we don't take this journey with empty hands, we have no means to receive what God has to give us. All we really need to take along with us is the spirit of peace. If we come in peace, then our peace is not determined by what we find along the way.

Journey is the avenue of movement, and Christianity is a religion in motion. We can't plop down on out virtue and call ourselves followers of Jesus. If Jesus is the one who's leading, we have to admit that following largely involves keeping up. Jesus didn't hunker down in a synagogue and make a career out of it. He always knew there was someplace up the road to get to.

And so when you meet vital disciples of Jesus today, they are always moving forward. The journey isn't always geographical, of course. Sometimes the place we need to get to is a state of mind or a condition of the heart.

TAKE MAX, FOR EXAMPLE. HE WAS A FELLOW WHO MADE THE journey from addiction to freedom. His particular addiction wasn't criminal. It was only cigarettes. But few in this country seriously doubt that cigarettes aren't harmful to the smoker and perhaps just as hazardous to those in the vicinity. And Max had a wife and kids. After a while the expense of his habit seemed like taking food right out of his children's mouths.

So one morning, Max got up, went to the bathroom and spat into the commode as he generally did upon rising. And it occurred to him that not everyone awakens to a rattling ball of phlegm lodged in his throat. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. It was his birthday. He was 40 years old.

As he smeared shaving cream over his face, he addressed himself. "I'm going to give myself a birthday present," he announced, dragging the blade of the razor across his cheek. "I'm not going to smoke today."

Just like that, the demon was stared down. Max didn't smoke that day or any day for more than a year. It wasn't easy. He'd been smoking for nearly three decades. But the farther he got away from his last cigarette, the better his food tasted, and the better he felt. He told the guys in the carpool they couldn't smoke in his car anymore. He didn't want it to stink. All those years he had been smoking, it never occurred to him that he stunk in the same way.

But casting out a demon doesn't mean it isn't hanging around waiting to be invited back in. One day at an office party, Max looked around the room and saw all of his coworkers with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He tossed back his drink and started to feel a little lonely. Not lonely for company, exactly--lonely for a cigarette.

Without even thinking about it, he wandered over to a cigarette machine, dropped in his money and picked up the pack, which fell with that same old gratifying thud into the tray.

When Max tells this story, you can still see the romance in his eyes. He entered into the mating ritual he'd performed a million times before: first, tearing the smallest, neatest hole at the top of the pack with his thumbnail, just large enough to remove one cigarette. Then, tapping the cigarette once, twice, three times against the pack to tamp down the tobacco. He breathed a long breath of expectation: his first cigarette in all these months. He was so lightheaded at the idea that it was as if the nicotine were already swirling around in his brain.

Just then, a lovely young woman wearing a snug little dress wandered up to him. Could I have one of your cigarettes?" she asked, giving him a fine red smile.

It was as if the whole process had been suddenly unmasked for what it was--a seduction. Desperately Max handed her the cigarette he had almost taken to his lips, and then crushed the rest of the pack into her other hand. "Here--take them all!" he shouted. Relief at his rescue filled his lungs with a breath of fresh air that he has never relinquished in the 40 years since.

This journey from addiction to freedom may seem short to someone who has never smoked. But ask anyone who's ever tried to recover possession of his or her life what the length and difficulty of such a road can be. When it comes to self-control, the journey is made up of countless steps taken daily.

Other journeys, like the one from hurt to healing, are equally common and just as demanding.

Taking the journey is often hard. Most of us feel justified in where we're at and who we've become. We're also strangely comfortable with our brokenness and can't imagine ourselves without it.

If we go down that road after Jesus, will we have to change? Will we have to forgive? Will we have to get well? These can be scary ideas, and the longer we've nurtured our troubles the more difficult it may be to let Jesus touch and transform us farther down the road. The early disciples might have felt the same way about taking a journey they didn't understand or fully believe in.

But when they took the risk, they returned rejoicing: "Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name!" May it be so with our demons, too.

ALICE CAMILLE, coauthor of the homily service Prepare the Word (TrueQuest Communications) and a forthcoming book about the Christian route to forgiveness by ACTA Publications.