The Stages of Life

You know how when you get something new…does not matter what it is…you have an adjustment to make in your life to accommodate this new thing?  Even if you really really want this new thing, there is an adjustment.  Same thing is true of going to new places and doing new things.  The same thing is true of learning new things.  Sometimes the learning of new things is the hardest of all new things to accommodate.  

I have said, and others have said things similar, that it seems our life journey is in stages.  The first stage is an embracement of the rules of the “father’s house.”  You learn those rules of survival.  How to get along, fit it, and basically make others happy.  It is pretty much about making others happy.  At some point, you start questioning all this (hopefully) and start having some thoughts of your own.  It usually happens when we get tired of living everyone else's life instead of our own.  

I have said before that my observation was that from about twenty to thirty I thought I knew everything.  After all it was what I had been taught.  From late thirties to forties, these rules started letting me down, and I realized that I did not know anything.  Then from my fifties on I understood that I did not even know what the questions were.  I would say that the feelings/emotions that go with these stages are arrogance, terror, and peace.  When you get over the terror of knowing that you know nothing and further realize that you don’t even know what the questions are, there is a sweet peace that is your reward.

I wish someone had given me this road map when I was younger.  I could have prepared for the crash and burn part at the end of stage one.  One problem is that in stage one “being right” is a life and death matter.  Stage two is kind of like a death of all you thought was “right” and your old self.  For a while, you kind of feel like you are never coming out of the tomb.  I remember asking God, “OK, who am I now that I am not who I used to be?  What do I believe now that I know that what I used to believe is a lie?  And, who am I going to be when I grow up?  I truly was standing in the middle of my home office (in the middle of this crises) having this conversation with God.  

God reminded me that when Moses was at the burning bush of truth and asking “Who am I?” that God did not answer that question.  He simply told him: I Am that I Am.  It seems it is enough to know that I AM is with you.  In the ancient Hebrew pictographs, the symbols that translate to “God” are an ox, yoke, and man.  It means that God is the strong ox who is yoked with you and teaching and helping you.  I really like this.  It is not at all Western man’s legalistic interpretation of God who is distant, separated, and has His face turned away from us.  Again, our Western teaching has distorted the image of God and who we are in God.  No matter where we are on the journey. we will find ourselves at the burning bush of new truth.  Remember, it is really all about I AM that I AM.  Praise God!