Part of reinventing, or maybe a lot of the reinventing process, means figuring out What’s next? In addition to Who am I now? we very much want to know where/when/how our new chapter will take place. Please pass the bowl of stability.

We tire of geography, or dysfunctional sameness, or discontent for what has worked for a long while. Something inside is nudging us on, but we can barely find words to explain it to others.

But life needs to move on and we know it.

A voice, seemingly on repeat, whispers

What’s the address?
Where’s the address?
Will I like the address?

Along with wondering about the address of our future, we have other very specific questions.

Who will be there?
What will the culture be like – food, activities, faith communities if we want one, language, acceptance?
Will I be on the same page as the other people there – politically, intellectually?
What will I need there?
What’s the weather like, and am I prepared for it?
What’s the traffic like?

Often we are asking, “What will this next chapter cost me, how uncomfortable might I be, and do I have what it takes to do this?”

The Biblical text in the book of Exodus contains historically specific questions that apparently have been asked over millennia when people have been led out of one life to another.

How much work will it take?
How long til I get there?
Where IS “there?”
What will I do if I don’t do the work I have always done, and live in survival-mode anymore?
Who will I be?
What will I do?

In his book Making All Things New, Henri Nouwen encourages a conscious shift to experience these questions less as worry and more an invitation to discover “…the rich variety of ways in which God makes his presence known to us.” Nouwen’s not without understanding, admitting that we may be led to either joyful or painful places. How well we know that.

Our passion for stability is in contrast to God’s desire for relationship. Israelites who were real-time living the roller coaster movie The Ten Commandments knew God comfortingly described as:

I’m with you.

Here is your daily manna.

Don’t save any of that manna in your Tupperware. Learn to trust that tomorrow I’ll meet your needs too.

Cloud by day. Pillar of fire by night. 24/7 guidance.

You’re so thirsty! Here’s water, from…a rock?

A rich variety of ways in which God makes his presence known to us, said Nouwen. Often weird ways of provision. Just ask those ancient people. Just ask anyone you know today.

Like former slaves in Egypt, it requires faith to believe that our own minds, souls, and even God are leading us to a new place. Not to Heaven, we must remember, but a place that is different than our present “this.”

Eat the manna; more will come.