A couple of years back, there was an email circling around called “The Quarter Life Crisis.” I recently found it while cleaning out my inbox and deleting old mail (seriously, who does that? …apparently I do…). This particular email outlined a few thoughts that some of us in or mid-twenties might be experiencing:

1) You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year, but
then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

2)You look at your job…and it’s not even close to what you thought you
would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that
you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

3) One minute, you are insecure and the next, secure.
You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life.
You feel alone and scared and confused.

4)You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for
yourself… and while winning the race would be great, right now you’d
just like to be a contender!

5)You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do
such damage to you. Or you lay in bed and wonder why you can’t meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better.

These are just a few off the list, but I found myself laughing along as I read down the page. The end of the email was super cheesy, with some quaint sparkling message saying, “Know that you aren’t alone, and be nice to others that are going through this too, because we’re all in the same boat – Now pass this along to 10 friends in 5 minutes or else a zombie is going to munch your dome while you’re sleeping,” or something stupid about bad luck and being dateless and never winning the lottery. Needless to say, I forwarded the email IMMEDIATELY. I  mean, according to this email, I’m already in crisis, so I wasn’t taking any chances on brain slurping zombies. 

But as I was entering in my friend’s emails, I started to wonder…..quarter life crisis?  Meaning that this is supposed to happen for just a portion of my life?? I’m pretty sure I’ve been feeling this way for way longer than just this year. Then it hit me:

I’m not in a quarter life crisis…I’m just flat out in crisis.

No, I simply cannot blame  it on my 25th year of life – I’ve been a hot mess a lot longer than I have been 25. I’m in perpetual transition. Perpetually lost. Perpetually clueless. Perpetually in crisis.

“Awesome, I was just trying to clean out my email inbox, not confirm that I’m officially a disaster.”

Prince of Egypt.

Now, track with me here a little bit. I’m going to tell you a story, and I promise that we’ll come full circle. Just hang tight:

Moses is probably my favorite Bible Character. I’ve rented The Prince of Egypt several times, and feel like an idiot that I can’t get through the whole thing without breaking into tears. Sappy, I know. (But if you haven’t figured this out by now, lots of things make me fold into tears…I can’t help it).

I think what I love about the story of Moses, is that he seems to have a genuine life story - I find him real and relatable. Imagine this scene playing out in your life: you’re twenty something, and a prince. Life is good. You rule over people, get what you want, you think you know who you are, and have a good idea of where you are going. Then – there is a problem. He finds out that he is really a Jew. He shares blood with the people that are slaves – beaten and tormented. So, naturally this would give a person enough material to question their identity and purpose in life. Oh, and let’s not forget he ends up killing a man accidentally. Oopsie. 

Talk about a quarter life crisis! I think he takes the cake on the “Who am I, and where I am going in life?” contest.

So what does he do? Run away. Good plan Moses. He runs to the desert and finds some sheep and hangs out as a shepherd. Remember when in doubt, you should always flee greatness and conflict for something safe and reliable, right?  And what does God do? Pulls him aside and with some minor theatrics (enter burning bush), places some epic crazy-ass calling on his life. “Sure God, I’ll save an entire race from the wrath of the ancient world’s most powerful ruler. Any other requests?”

 Anyone relate? Because sometimes I think I am the only one who feels like the world is a giant place and I burn to make some sort of impact,  but  at the same time I don’t always know who I am, where I am going, or where the hell to start? Maybe that’s just me. Maybe I should go find myself a flock of sheeps.

If you want all of the details, watch the movie because there is a lot of great details in the plot – God doing all these wonders, making the Israelites flee, parting the sea, leading them through the desert…it’s great story. And the creators of The Prince of Egypt actually do a great job with the visuals.

Stoic God vs. YAWEH God

So, when I read the Old Testament, I have this idea of who God is. He’s some somber, Holy, powerful thing. Maybe he reminds you of  the President, or a Governor. Someone who totally has an impact on your life, but they don’t really know you too well, and you don’t really know them either. He’s stoic and phlegmatic. He makes rules, does miracles as He feels like it, writes on stone tablets and drowns Pharaohs. That’s the God I think of when I think of Exodus and Moses.

But, this last week I caught a whole new vision of God that I’d never thought of.  Exodus 33 is a chapter I have read a thousand times, and it’s amazing how you can read the story over and over, and still miss what is really going on.

Essentially, the background is this: God had shown up over and over again for Moses and his people. BUT, they decided that it wasn’t really enough and melted their gold to make a calf to worship. (Because sometimes God feels far away and you just need a golden idol-calf. I’m sure you’ve made this mistake before.)

At this point God is so pissed, he says to Moses, “ You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.”  Yikes. Can you imagine GOD telling you this. I might have sh*t my pants right then and there.

Apparently after some thinking time, God’s response is this (and I’m paraphrasing to get my point across):

 Fine Moses, you have done this whole thing kicking and screaming from the beginning. I’ve told you that I am always with you, but somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough. I tell you I’m never going to leave you and that I will prepare a way for you, but wait – you need a golden calf just to make sure. Thanks a lot. So, I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I’m going to fix the whole thing for you – I’m going to make your journey perfect. You’ll get your way – milk and honey, and your enemies will all be crushed. But the catch is this: I’m not going with you.

I’d never realized that God feels. He isn’t some stoic pillar in the sky – he’s like a lover. Ok, I even feel weird writing that, but I think it’s true. He and Moses were close beyond words. They were face to face all the time, the bible says he talked to Moses like a friend. And can you imagine, here it is in Exodus, Moses and God having an all out screaming match?

 A Solution to the Crisis?

God is hurt. Moses is scared. His responses to God is this: “DON’T LEAVE ME GOD.”

This is the part that kicked me in the teeth. I realized that (when I’m really honest) I don’t know if that would be my response. I mean, of course, my knee jerk reaction to to say, “Of course I want to be in the presence of God always.”

But then, if I think about it, I want to know more details about the contract. The honest part of my heart perks up and says, “You mean the crisis can be over? And what do you mean by ‘prepare a way for you’? Are you really saying that I can have the perfect life, and everything that I’ve dreamed up – job, career, husband, children, travels, financials…and the only catch is that you aren’t coming?”

I feel bad saying that I might entertain the idea…but I might entertain the idea. I know as a real Christian who apparently loves Jesus you aren’t supposed to – but I might have.

Would the thought of going along alone be enough to make me stop in my tracks? I know it was for Moses. He had a full blown freak out. Screaming, “Don’t leave God, how do I do this without you!?”

I know that in theory God loves us, but this time when I read the passage between Moses and God, it played out in my mind was like dramatic movie – like the ending of The Notebook. Two people that were so crazy in love with being together, that they would go to the ends of the earth and endure all pains to have it. I never thought of God as being so wily. I always imagined him much more controlling and pragmatic.

Awe.

I guess all I have in light of this is awe. After recklessly pursuing God for years, I still manage to discover more things about who He is – how he is different than I thought. When he says, “I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU,” he is talking to me. And yes, when he says “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses…” those stories aren’t feltboard memories devoid of passion. It means that they are the template to draw from – that they give us clues to how He feels about us.

And, as uncouth as it might be, the only words I have for that is, “DAMN.”

I suppose this truth makes my email-diagnosed crisis ok. It means that if I never get there – if I never escape the lost feelings I battle, that God is with me. That he loves me and we hang out. Maybe one day we’ll laugh together about how lost I felt. Or maybe that I should start worrying less about where I am going, and how quickly God is supposed to get me there and just start enjoying my life for what it is. After all, we only get one shot at this thing, so we might as well sit back and simply let the crisis enfold us.