As we returned home from his birthday dinner out and sharing with family, I found myself reflecting upon my 13th birthday. I still remember it. I don’t remember the gifts I received, but I do have vague memories of the dinner together and a sense that this was a big deal. I remember my parents and friends talking about it as if it was a new chapter in life.
Who knows whether the feelings were felt that day, but I do remember entering “teenage-dom” with a sense of excitement mixed with dread and fear. I didn’t know what to expect nor what everyone was talking about with teenagers being different and evolving (should I say ‘rebelling’?), but I do remember having a sense that I was changing...and with the changes in me, it felt like the world was going to be changing.
Though I haven’t talked it out with my son, I wonder if he is, or will be, feeling the same kinds of things. Maybe we who have been through it make a bigger deal about it than it is, and adolescence is different for everyone, but the changes are real. They are palpable, and at times they are scary, for the familiar becomes unfamiliar, that upon which we can rely seems to not be as reliable, and the paradigm that we knew of as ‘life’ shifts under our feet.
Physical changes come which lead to questions, sensitivities, and confusion. Emotional changes occur which keep us, and everyone around us, wondering where “that response” came from and/or what the next response will be. Psychological changes come, and we begin to think different. Our perceptions shift, and the world can close in or expand at the blink of an eye. Spiritual changes occur, and we begin to understand that the faith of our fathers and mothers is theirs. At some point, we’ll have to grapple with what that faith means to us and whether we will embrace it.
The main characters in the book of Exodus are God, Moses, and the people of Israel. Egypt plays a bit part, but the action is really focused on the other three. The story starts with Moses being sent down the river, but God saves him and actually prepares him for his later life, when he becomes the great leader Israel needs.
Moses is called by God in a drastic way, and God says, “I need you to lead my people out of slavery.” The reality of such a call was pretty overwhelming for Moses. It meant returning to a land where he was wanted for murder. It meant telling the most powerful person on the earth to simply free his slave labor. It meant allowing the course of his life to be drastically changed.
Moses did follow, and after a series of actions on God’s part, the people of Israel did get out of Egypt. But on the other side of the Red Sea through which they escaped, they had a long road ahead of them – 40 years to be exact. Along that road there were times when they listened to God and
Moses, and there were times when they didn’t. Often Moses would hear them say, “Well at least we had the necessities of life when we were back in Egypt. Let’s just turn around.” Always, Moses would say, “We must press ahead, for God has great things in store. We just have to push through the struggles and changes to God’s gift in front of us.”In God’s time, they did push through, and though they didn’t always follow, though they fell and at other times were faithful, the lesson of the wilderness remained. Change is hard, but when they pushed through the change and trusted in God, they ended up in the place they were supposed to be.
As I think of and pray for my kids, especially my now adolescent, I can’t help but think of Moses and the Israelites and the lesson they teach us all. There will be changes, and it will not always be easy, but when we trust in God and follow, God makes a way for us to end up where we need to be.
As I think of these things, I also think of the church and the people of faith. There are some churches and some people who are spiritually infants, some who are kids, some who are adolescents, and some who are grown adults in the faith, and at each stage of the spiritual life we go through a shift, a change, and it scares the hell out of us. We don’t want to move to the next level because it’s unknown. We fear what we do not know, and yet if we push through, trust God and trust one another, God can take any church or any person to the place where they need to be.
As I think of these things, I am reminded of situations within me and around me where transformation is happening in wonderful and amazing ways, and I see (within and around) the desire to keep control or keep the status quo, which though it may give us the illusion of comfort, really only keeps at bay what is needed for us to get to the place God needs me/us to be.
This life thing, or should I say “faith thing”, is not always easy. It is filled with times of standing on shifting sand as well setting our feet on solid ground. It is a mix of living from who we have been to who we need to become. It is a struggle at times, but it is also an amazing journey, and the way we navigate that most effectively, the way we truly live, is to push through the chaos, ask the questions and sit with the silence, reflect upon the discomfort but then trust in God and one another to take us to the place we need to be.
When WE do...God ALWAYS does.
Where in your life do things seem to be shifting? How are you responding? Are you trying to maintain control? What might you do to relinquish control and give it over to God?
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