If you have spent any amount of time around me you will have heard me say the phrase, “it’s always something.” It gets a laugh like 40% of the time. Mostly though, I say it because it’s often all I have to express.
This year I have finally accepted the reality that in life… there is always something. Something is always going to be taking up mind space wanting to pull me out of the present. Whether it is something I want, disappointments, unmet expectations, suffering, impatience, the list goes on, something is always trying to tell me that “life will be better when…”
While this may be true in some instances, it is rather unhelpful. One, you don’t actually know it will be better and two… its always something. The promise of life in this fallen world is as soon as life gets “better”, something else will come knocking “life will be better when…”
It’s always something.
The real bummer about this is that if we allow the lie of a better life to consume us, we give up the goodness we experience here and now. I call this tension “the struggle of the in-between”. Another way to say “it’s always something” is to say, “in life we are always caught in-between two things.”
The most universal experience of this might be the way we wish away the seasons of our lives. In middle school we can’t wait for high school. In high school we can’t wait for college. In college we need to be married tomorrow, once we are married when are the kids coming? And so on and so on and so on and so on.
While this is true on the macro level, it is also true in a more micro sense. When we suffer we are caught in between our pain and our desire to get out of that suffering. The job we have and the job we want. Singleness and marriage. Hoping and praying for healing while preparing for death. Yearning for the situation to be resolved. Our sanctification and battle with sin. Longing for reconciliation.
It’s always something… we are always stuck in-between.
Furthermore, we are not only stuck in-between on a circumstantially macro and micro level but also a cosmic level. For Christians, we are already members of the kingdom of God, partaking in the goodness of eternity, AND have not yet walked into the fullness of that eternity. This is the theological idea of the already/not yet. We feel the effects of this theological idea every time we have faith, yet suffer. When we hope, yet see grave injustice.
Both cosmically and circumstantially we are stuck in-between… so how do we as Christians live in the in between?
It was this time a year ago I was beginning a sermon series on the book of Exodus.
What struck me a year and a half ago was the story arc of Exodus. If you think about it, Exodus is a book about being stuck in-between. The Israelites were stuck in-between Egypt and the Promise Land. What we learn in the primary text of Exodus is how God pursues His people, and how we are to live as followers of God, in the in-between.
This truth is maybe best illustrated near the end of Exodus where we find the story of the golden calf. Moses goes to talk with God on Mt. Sinai and the people begin to doubt Moses is coming back and decide to worship a golden calf.
Let’s talk about this golden calf. I don’t know about you, but I have always struggled to understand why they wanted to worship a golden calf so bad. Often we say an idol is something we want more than God. Why did they want a gold statue more than God? Why did they worship a gold calf and it was idolatry but idolatry for us looks like power, prestige, money, relationships, possessions, etc. It seems rather stupid?
When idols are mentioned in scripture they are worshipped because the people believe that by worshipping those idols they will get something. Whether that be good weather, money, sex, power, etc. they worship idols because they believe that it will give them what they want. The Israelites wanted the promise land so when Moses was MIA on Mt. Sinai with God, they decided a gold calf was going to be their great guiding light to the land of promise.
It was not about the gold calf, it was about the promise land. The people wanted the promise land more than God. An idol is a means to an end. It is something we go to to get something God has not given us yet. When we do this we say with our actions, God is not enough.
Where we often struggle is instead of embracing the in-between as God’s sovereignty, we try to push back against the will of God and make what we want happen. We try to get out of the in-between when God has us there for a reason. Our gold calf isn’t what we want, it is the thing we use to get what we want. Whether that be working too much, compromising values, dating apps, the list goes on. Our Gold calf isn’t want we want, but what we use to get what we want.
Idolatry isn’t about a silly gold statue, but a position of the heart.
The antitheses to the Israelites idolatrous behavior is Moses’s response. Moses comes down from the mountain to find the people worshipping a gold calf, needless to say he is pissed. More importantly, God is pissed. The climax of this is Exodus 33 where Moses is trying to convince God to have grace on the people of Israel. God relents and says, “I will keep my covenant with you and allow you to enter the promise land but my presence will not go with you because you are a stiff necked people” (paraphrasing). Moses responds by saying, “I will not go into the land of the promise if your presence won’t going before me.”
Moses has dealt with this sinful and rebellious people in the wilderness for all this time and now he is giving up what it has all been for, the promise land. In fact, Moses never enters the promise land and will die in the wilderness. He gave it all up for the presence of God.
The people wanted the promise land more than the presence of God… but Moses knew the promise land was meaningless if the presence of God wasn’t there.
Life cannot be about getting out of the in-betweens. It’s always something, there will always be another in-between. This was true for the Israelites. Things were far from perfect even once they entered the Promise Land. Don’t believe me? Read anywhere past Exodus… and you won’t have to read long.
Whatever in-between you find yourself in today, what you want is not found in getting out of the in-between. Peace is not found in mustering up a way for you to get into the next season. Satisfaction is not found in going to another source to gain access to the promise land.
Your peace, satisfaction, hope, and joy is found not on the other side of an in-between but in the burning bush, the parted the Red sea, the manna each and every morning, the pillar of fire and smoke, the one who dwelled with the people in the tabernacle and dwells in the temple of our spirit.
The good news of Exodus is that our greatest desires are not satisfied on the other side of the “something” we find ourselves in-between, but rather in a person named Jesus who has promised to be enough come suffering, unmet expectations, disappointments, hurt, and sin.
As God from the moment the people left Egypt provided manna every day, He has promised us our daily bread, and He has promised that is enough.
We can choose to wake up each morning and long for what’s next, sad, angry, frustrated, and disappointed for the better life that is yet to come… OR we can breathe deep… look in the mirror… smile and say, “it’s always something” and go to find our daily bread.
A sunrise, a cool breeze, a warm smile, a good meal, good company, a kind “hello”, a restful walk, good work, on and on and on and on. All gifts from God, our manna for today we can’t store up for tomorrow.
We CAN choose to set our minds on Him today.
While it’s always something, today is a gift, and the Lord is in today… may that not pass us by.
…each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:13-17
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31
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