LETTING GO

The Hebrew people entered the desert feeling themselves as a united and strong people, and you'd think that perhaps they would have experienced greater strength as they continued, but not so: They experienced fragmentation and weariness; they experienced divisions among their people. They were not the people they thought they were. The Jewish exodus is a rather perfect metaphor for spirituality.

When all of our idols are taken away, all our securities and defense mechanisms, we find out who we really are. We're so little, so poor, so empty—and a shock to ourselves. But God takes away our shame, and we are eventually able to present ourselves in an honest and humble form. Then we find out who we really are and who God is for us—and it is more than enough. That is how an enslaved people became God’s people, Israel.