Wandering

 I’m not lost. I’m just wandering.

There is something to be said for living life without an anchor. By which I mean, living without anything to hold you down to one place, one job, one style of life, one set of friends.

It’s sometimes frightening to be so unleashed, of course. To find yourself flung into the GREAT UNKNOWN without any idea of where you are going to land. But the hard facts of life mean that no one, not even the most rooted and grounded and anchored person with a pension and a 401K actually knows what is going to happen next. It’s just the illusion of safety to think that what you have now you will still have tomorrow or even in 5 minutes.

Wandering is the ability to throw off those illusions and simply face the uncertainty head on. It’s a little bit like an adrenaline rush, but more than that it is a fantastic exercise in faith…a trust fall of epic proportions.

I suppose I ought to clarify that I’m not truly without any anchor. The hope I have in Christ is a rock-solid foundation that I can anchor into even while I’m wandering (Hebrews 6:19). It’s like true north on a compass. No matter where I wander, I’m not lost, and I never will be. So I don’t have to fear the uncertainty. I can embrace change and wildness and even a worldwide pandemic without losing myself or losing sight of what is important.

I know it isn’t truly feasible for some, and that others wander entirely unintentionally. However, if it is ever possible for you to do so, if ever you come across a chance where you think “if only I had time off” or “someday I’d really like to” and you feel that pull in your chest like your being drawn somewhere even though it doesn’t make sense, I say go. I mean, pray about it first. Don’t just jump off a bridge without looking. But go as often as you can. 

Learn new things. Meet new people. Experience new cultures.

Love God Always, first and last and forever.

Wander.

Because

2020 became the year where the words ‘because Covid’ explained everything from chaos and fear to widespread shutdowns, illness, overtime or lack of employment, distance learning and the inability to get a decent haircut. In the course of a few weeks, the entire world changed. The structure and fabric of society warped in new ways, and humans did not approve. Because…Covid.

It’s a phrase that explains the change, separating the normal and expected from everything that followed over the course of the last 12 months.

It occurs to me that we can take a lesson from this. After all, as Christians, we’ve encounter another entirely life-changing event, one that can really be summed up by a similar phrase ‘because Jesus.’ And like the previous phrase, we should be able to note radical change in our lives, our homes, the way we do things, how we work, and even what we spend our money on…because Jesus.

This idea isn’t really a new one, but in the current context, I found it particularly poignant when it reached me.

Because Jesus came to earth as man and God, because he is light and love and life, because Jesus loves me, because he died to annihilate death, because he is alive and I’m forgiven…Because Jesus.

Imagine someone saying: This guy at work was so rude, but I was kind to him anyway…you know, because Jesus.

Or: I don’t really want to get involved with the underprivileged, it will take up so much time, but, because Jesus, I think I’ll do it anyway.

Just a thought, but if we started thinking in this way instead of underling everything that we’ve lost or been separated from in the last year, we just might find that we haven’t lost what’s important after all.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. 

- Ephesians 4:32