I will be graduating college in May. In one year, my life could be very different than it is today. I might be employed in a full-time job. I might be living in a different state. I might be writing the next great American novel. I might finally get around to pursuing a career in the yodeling industry. Who knows??
I don't do well with change. At all. I resist about as hard as I can. Most of my life is devoted to becoming as comfortable as possible. I absolutely love sitting with my feet up. I don't purchase clothes based on how they look but on how they feel. A soft blanket has potential to bring me to tears.
But there's even more than that. I need to structure my life around me to be as comfortable as possible. I have to find a way to carve out some routine, some normalcy, some kind of existence where everything makes sense and I can at least feel like I have some control over things. Eventually, of course, my life inevitably changes and I have to find a way to be comfortable in that new life, and I do. This happened when I moved, when I started high school, when I got my first job, when my sister left for college, and then when I left for college.
Somewhere between the time that I realize my life has changed for the better and the time when my life changes once more, I manage to forget that God made something beautiful out of the last change. I tend to have this subconscious assumption that whatever change that was most recent is the most miraculous work that God has ever done in my life and there's no way that he could ever top it. God's worked and now it's on me to make the most of the work that he's done.
Sounds stupid, I know, but this is one of those times where my stupidity is biblically based. For the Jewish people, the single most important event for them as a people of God was the Exodus. This was, to them, the best show of God's strength and commitment to his people. The problem is, they seemed to also assume that his power was sort of spent after the business with the ten plagues.
The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” - Exodus 16:1-3
It's at this point that I want to say, "Are you kidding me?!" at this whole line of logic, but . . . I think I get it. I get where they're coming from. And I do the exact same thing. We have the benefit of hindsight when we read this story, we can see that obviously slavery is not a desirable way of life, and obviously the God that got them out of Egypt will also provide for them while they're out of Egypt.
But think for a second if you were one of them. Egypt is the only life they'd ever known. It was the land of their parents and their grandparents. Sure, it was a tough life, but it was the only life they knew. They were worked half to death, but they knew where their next meal was coming from. They were horribly mistreated, but at least they had a safe place to sleep at night. They were told to kill all their baby boys, but at least they still got to worship their God in relative peace. And when God said it was time to go, they followed. We see this as a great move of faith, and I truly think that it is, but what about right after? What about when they look around and realize they have to start completely over? What about when they realize they know absolutely nothing about what is about to happen to them?
They respond exactly how I would - with resistance, doubts, questions, and a healthy dose of complaining.
Can you imagine how frustrated God must have been with this? Think about his ultimate goal in taking the Israelites out of Egypt. He wanted to establish them as their own nation, a people set apart from the rest of the world, his chosen people. He wanted to be their ruler and he wanted them to remain his people. He would give them the Promised Land, he would give them authority over surrounding nations, and (most importantly) his presence would never leave them.
And they complained about being brought out of slavery.
More than that, God, through Jesus Christ, invited all people to be his holy and chosen nation and welcomed them into his kingdom that would one day bring about complete and utter renewal of the world that he created. He promised an eternal paradise with God and his people finally united with the intimacy that he envisioned in the Garden of Eden all those years ago.
And we complain when God tries to take us one step closer to that future.
When we go through these periods of impending change, when we wrestle with doubts about what the future holds, we tend to focus on the first half of the narrative: what God is calling us from. He's taking me out of a life that is safe and familiar and comfortable. He's forcing me to leave behind the existence I know and trade it for one that I don't. He's taking me on a death march through the wilderness when I was perfectly happy coasting through the world that I knew.
But what about the rest of the story? The desert wandering was just a chapter in the greater narrative of the people of God. What would happen if we started thinking about what God is calling us to? I believe that God has a destination in mind for us. I believe that God has something in store for us that is much better than the life we know or even the life that we could ever imagine. But we cling so tightly to the way of life that we're familiar with that we don't ever stop to think of what could be waiting ahead of us. He's dragging us along behind him, eyes fixed on the Promised Land ahead that he set aside just for us, while we pull as hard as we can back toward the paltry life he's just redeemed us from. We're doing ourselves a disservice. And we're very clearly not putting our faith in him.
So now I'm talking to you, fellow Americans. Because I know you're probably like me. Maybe you're not as bad with change as I am, but I'm almost positive you crave comfort just as much as I do. I want to encourage you. The road ahead isn't meant to be one that scares us. We, of all people, should be facing new opportunities with great joy and excitement. We serve the God who frees, the God who saves, the God who has a plan for his people, the God who makes all things new, the God who works all things for the good of those who love him. When God calls us out of our comfort, we have to know that something good is coming.
I want to leave with one more thought on this front. Jesus makes it perfectly clear that a life with him was never intended to be easy. In fact, he alludes to a lifetime of difficult work, people rejecting us, and the world hating us. We can't forget this part of Christianity when we invite Jesus into our lives. He frees, redeems, brings joy, and conquers, yes, but he also told us we've got work to do. Atang Agwe sums it up beautifully in her spoken word poem entitled "The Comfortable Christian:"
The Son of Man needs a permanent house, / Not a vacation home, / But it looks like you've made a home / Out of your comfort zone.Find some way to let go of your comfort in the coming weeks. And let's think about the Promised Land that might await us.
~RJS~
No comments:
Post a Comment