Living Onwards
During my current wandering with God's people in Genesis, I was reflecting on the cycle of exile. Leaving home has become something of a motif in my story - I'm neither a stranger nor an expert. My roots have learned to dangle aloft, dropping clods of dirt as they await new earth. As I meditated on Joseph's faith-fueled declaration in Genesis 50:20, I came to see the choice we have in every wilderness journey:
We can live backwards or we can live onwards.
Living backwards has our eyes fixed on what was. It can be the persistent struggle of holding a wound rather than healing. It can be the ever present longing for what we once had. It can be shame, regret and embarrasment over our faults and failings. It is the temptation for Joseph to hold onto the hurt of his brothers' treachery. It is liberated Israel yearning for the cucumbers of Egypt. It is me always missing what I have left behind.
Living onwards looks to where we are headed. It requires faith and determination. It is fueled by hope and promise. It learns the lessons of the past but doesn't abide there. Living onwards is a layered skill for people of faith. As followers of Jesus we live inbetween, sojurners in an age that will come to a close, but simultaneously called to live here and now as citizens of the kingdom we await. Living onwards frees me to receive the gifts of the past, hold loosely the comforts of the present, and be willing to surrender both because the best is yet to come.
I cannot help but consider my friends, my sisters and brothers in the church, my fellow humans in Ukraine and Russia, who are finding themselves as exiles. Be it geography, politics, ideology, there are borders being crossed and lives being displaced. Exile is not a choice. It is a painful reality for many people. But I am convinced that within exile we do have a choice. Backwards or onwards?
Questions for Reflection
What would it look like to live onwards today?
- Where am I going?
- Who am I traveling with?
- What must I carry and what can I leave behind?