Some of us live for routines. We like unambiguous answers and we thrive in certitudes.
However, that isn’t always possible. And perhaps in our Lenten faith journey, if we would allow our certitudes to be challenged, we will find that we experience transformation in profound ways.
I have a friend that is obsessed about what number check out line she will go to. (If my number doesn’t fit her schema, she will adamantly stand in the middle of the store until we agree to either go our separate ways or go to a number she feels appropriate.)
I have another friend that is highly organized. Everything has its right “spot and space.” Frankly, I’m impressed by the keen sense of order that exists in her world.
Impressed . . . and maybe a little jealous. Because I’m doing good to actually keep all the pieces that need to exist in my world, together. Things like car keys, cell phone, work bag, glasses, Bible . . . on any given day I lose 1 or all of the above items and I waste an inordinate amount of time trying to find those things. I like to agitate my friends that have such profound senses of organization and order.
For the one whose home is meticulously organized, every time I am by her house, I intentionally sneak into her kitchen where she keeps her well marked/organized canisters. I turn them around and switch their locations EVERY TIME! It makes me laugh because I know it drives her just a LITTLE bit crazy. She is such a person of order and routine. I am such a person of chaos. It’s a unique blend in a friendship.
She’s had some pretty significant transformations that have happened in her life, however, over the past year. Transformations she never expected. And transformations that took intense periods of time to process, accept, and come to peace with. Now, she embraces her new reality and loves all the components of it. But it took awhile to work through the ambiguities and what life would/could look like when the old routine was changed.
When we approach our lives as if there is nothing that can change and we are so cocksure and settled, we miss out on the beauty that awaits us.
Time and time again in scripture we see that God confronts God’s followers in liminal spaces. Times where they were in great transition . . . and it is in those times that God reveals God’s best for them. Then, in their bewilderment, confusion, and unsettledness they boldly take steps into their new realities. Finding that the beauty that awaited them was far more transformational than the comfort of their past routines.
May this Lenten season we be willing to be in a season of ambiguities, bewilderment, and confusion. May we look to God for clarity and purpose so that we can be transformed in the Divine Image of Love.
2 Thess. 3:5
May the Master take you by the hand and lead you along the path of God’s love and Christ’s endurance.