William James, portrayed in the 2010 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture ‘Hurt Locker’ was a member of an elite squad of soldiers who disarmed roadside bombs throughout Iraq.
His job had absolutely zero margin for error as you see in this clip. Later in the movie, there is a very poignant scene when William James returns state side and while home he goes shopping with his wife. His mission that day was to simply buy some cereal.
As you can see from the video clip while state-side he’s out of his element – culture shock at home. When at work he is on task, on mission. Yet, when at home there is no real mission for him, he is out of his element that he had become used to. It became part of him.
While many of us have not come home war weary from Iraq many of us have been in a place when we have been out of our element. Maybe it’s like the new kid in school who has no friends and eats by himself in the cafeteria. Or like the fifty-something guy who hasn’t looked for work since high school and has not had a job offer for over two years. Or maybe it’s the widow who after thirty-five years of marriage is trying to figure out her finances for the first time in her life. Or maybe it’s…
Like William James many find themselves staring in the cereal aisle bewildered. Lost. Dazed and confused. Now what? We have seen in the last few blogs that during the Israel’s wilderness wanderings they began to define themselves not by who they were meant to be (the people of God), but by who they were no longer. They wanted to go back to the familiar, to what they knew in Egypt, but they couldn’t go back. It was too late for that now. Do you feel it’s too late for you?
William James was no longer defusing bombs in Iraq. For others, they’re no longer married. For others, they no longer have kids in the home. For others they are no longer an auto worker. For others they’re no longer a realtor. For others they’re no longer a teacher or a middle manager. Things have changed. Nothing will be the same again.
The wilderness wanderings were definitely not the ‘best of’ Israeli history.
It was quite ugly. It was a very dry place for them, but it was also very fertile ground for complaint. In places like these our faith can grow or it can be a place where our faith goes to die. Sadly, due to disobedience many of the Hebrews never made it to the Promised Land, but their kids did. How we respond to our time of staring into the cereal aisle will determine if we will grow from it or just go through it.
Our desert place can be a place of complaint, anger, bitterness and breakdown or it can be a place of growth, a kind of desert boot camp to develop our faith. It was God’s desire for the Israelis to be the people of God, a people of promise. God said of His people, “once you were not a people, but now you are a people, a people belonging to God.” I Peter 2:10
Developing our faith takes place through prayer, bible study, fellowship and service. These are necessary parts of the Christ follower, but there’s another kind of spiritual growth – transformational growth that takes place when our world has been rocked. A hard season of life can change us, but it’s really how we respond when we’re staring at the cereal aisle that can truly transform us. What will you choose?
