Where Are You... Right Now?

In her book, “Eat, Pray, Love”, Elizabeth Gilbert is spending several months living on the Indonesian island of Bali, as a part of a year-long experience of self-discovery. As she’s beginning her time amongst the Balinese, she realizes that there are 2 questions that are always asked when someone of the Balinese culture meets someone else:

“Where are you going?” and “Where are you coming from?”

Asking these questions, Gilbert says, helps the Balinese people to locate you, to see where you stand on their grid of comfort and security. The worst thing you can do, she says, is to answer either of those questions, “I don’t know”, because of the disorienting distress that answer might bring on.

Though we in our culture are much more likely to comfortably say that we have no idea where we are coming from and where we’re going, we also ask those questions of one another. But maybe our questions are more along the lines of, “What are your future plans?” and “What kind of dysfunctional family did you come from?”

Alright, I guess we don’t really say the second one out loud… but it’s become important for many of us to look back into our family histories to learn more about ourselves and what makes us tick. Unquestionably, it’s been a gift to many searching souls to ask, “Where did I come from?” in order to answer the real biggie, “And where am I going?”

But we know so well… every gift has its backside. Or every good idea can be taken too far. And some end up so stymied by what they find in the past that they can’t find their way to the future. Or even to the present.

Today’s Bible passage (click on the title to find the link) about God’s ancient press secretary, wildman Ezekiel, shows us that this reality is nothing new. When God’s people of old were taken from their beloved hometowns to the land of hated superpower Babylon, it was understood that the reason their country was defeated is that people screwed up and everyone was living the consequences of those mistakes. As the next generation was growing up, they felt trapped in the web of their parents’ sins. Our parents ate the bad apples, and we get a stomach ache. IT’S NOT FAIR!

Ezekiel’s got some hard words for the people. But in the end, they’re good news words. Yes, your parents made a bad investment and lost the farm. But you’ve also made some stupid mistakes. Look at your own behavior for a change. That may hurt like hell, but at least you can make some choices, if you dare to look honestly at your life. You can choose to turn toward God. Sulking is not your only choice.

The God you turn toward isn’t looking back. This God’s looking at you right now, for who you are in this minute, not for who you were or who you will be. And this God wants to give you life.

It’s plenty hard to take responsibility for your actions and make big changes. Downright impossible to keep it up. We can’t do it alone. We need God to love us into each new day. We need God’s people to hold us up and keep us strong.

Like Elizabeth Gilbert said of the Balinese, we need a grid to stand on, a community to help locate us. But most of all we need a God who takes us seriously in the moment, forgiving us, graciously turning us around, again and again and again.