EXCERPTS

Chapter 2: The Spirit's Leading

I am trying to learn something at once both simple and in¬credibly difficult: the destination is not a place but a person—a person who loves me very much and more than anything wants to be with me along the journey of life. I am much more open these days to the idea that God isn’t all that interested in getting me somewhere. God is just interested in getting me! This journey from drivenness to meandering requires an experienced guide, and God’s Spirit is a most capable traveling companion.

One of my favorite journey stories from the Bible is the Is¬raelites’ expedition from Egypt to the promised land. Some of God’s best work, I think. A trip that easily could have been made in less than 40 days, had they followed a straight line, took 40 years. They meandered. Their travel log must have resembled the kind of scribbled picture a two-year-old would draw. You have probably heard someone explain their meanderings in this way: “More important than getting the Israelites out of Egypt was getting Egypt out of the Israelites.” Or “The Israelites were lost because Moses wouldn’t stop and ask for directions.” I think their time spent wandering through the wilderness had more to do with God needing to spend quality time with the people (and the people with God) so they could experience God’s faithfulness over and over again.

God wanted them to trust him today. That’s why God provided manna on a daily basis. Consider the definition of manna—”What is it?” They had to trust God to know that this nameless, unidentifiable, perishable whatchamacallit would be enough for now. They were to gather up only what they could consume that day. If they tried to keep some of it overnight, it spoiled. Tomorrow God would provide—again. They couldn’t make it happen—no matter how much they might be driven by hunger. They just had to meander around, collecting manna as it randomly fell from the sky. But these ancient wanderers were a hardheaded bunch. How else can you explain them witnessing with their own eyes the 10 plagues, the parting of the sea (twice), bread from heaven, water from rocks, quail blown in by the wind, and countless kingdoms obliterated by the awesome power of God—only to whine, beg, and plead to go back to Egypt, back to a life of slavery, back to what was a familiar, linear, predictable way of life?

Maybe God needed 40 years to nurture a new generation of followers who might just “get” him and be willing to follow. Maybe what God wanted most from them, and now us, is a willingness to put one foot in front of the other, step after step, alongside him, no matter the pace or how the path might twist and turn. Maybe God wanted them to grasp a greater purpose for their lives—to be people who would give witness to this unique and awesome God.

Aren’t we eager to get through whatever task or challenge we face in life as quickly as possible, moving steadily from point A to point B to point C, ever closer toward whatever goal we have in mind? The Israelites’ experience reminds us: the spiri¬tual journey doesn’t work that way. In the faith journey, we are not so much racing toward a physical finish line as meandering toward becoming all that God has in mind for us to be. Like the Israelites, our ability to discern and follow God’s leading has far less to do with time in a chronological sense and much more to do with direction.

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