We now watched three seasons pass in our new home in our new-ish city. It is strange to think that you could know a place so well and then come back home only to realize how much it has changed…or maybe it’s how much you have changed? It has been so fun to watch our kids settle into a city that has been so important to each of us individually and then as the place our lives began together.
I keep getting reminders of a year ago and thinking, “I had no idea our whole lives were about to change.” And isn’t this how it is when God calls unexpectedly? You think you know what lies ahead or how much longer you are going to be in this season of life and then you are reminded that as much as we can plan ahead, God has a way of interrupting and disrupting our lives.
These points when we are called away from something that we’ve known or somewhere we’ve known are often equated with God calling the people of God into the wilderness or into the unknown. As much as the people of God wanted freedom, they also wanted to know what was ahead and what they should bring. Did they have time to let the bread rise or was this a pack everything and go situation? Sound familiar?
As we traverse the path of Lent, it would be easy to say that being called into the wilderness is scary and unpredictable…and it is. But being called away from what we have known into something unknown is also a call to reconnect ourselves to the Divine and to nature. The wilderness is a place where we find who we are and where we fit into nature. When we are in the wilderness, we are reminded how small we are compared to the power of nature and to the miraculous power of God to make bread fall from heaven. Maybe, just maybe, the call into the wilderness is the call to be right here in this present moment and to love where we are living: in community with each other and in connection to nature and Creator God.