This week Chris and I met with the leadership of our mission to talk about the logistics of our multicultural lives as they relate to all the "adulting" things I dread the most: taxes, retirement, citizenship, Brexit, passports, property, decisions decisions decisions.
I left the meeting feeling overwhelmed with how complicated our lives are, and how much red tape lies in front of us for the rest of our lives. As we went back upstairs to the world of "maths" and physics, the thought tumbled in my mind, then rolled off my tongue.
Why can't I just be normal? Why do we have to be so weird? Why do I always have to be the trailblazer, the "unique situation" the "exception?"
This morning I was reading in Joshua about the inheritances of the people (Josh. 14-19). Everyone got their chunk of the Promised Land. Except the Levites. They didn't get land.
But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance; the Lord God of Israel is their inheritance, just as he said to them.
What an incredible statement. One verse in chapters of land boundaries and names of tribes and clans.
And that verse made me weep.
I can't help but picture the Levites eagerly waiting for their lot. Their chunk of land. The pieces of land are divided up, and they get one sentence: oh, your inheritance is the Lord.
I picture them in this confused state... what does that mean? How can we inherit the Lord? That sounds complicated, and terrifying. After all, this Lord is the Lord that holds back the rivers and the sea, the one who pulled down the walls of Jericho, that caused the sun to STOP in its travel across the sky, the one who hurled down hailstones at the enemy. The Lord who strikes dead those who disobey Him, the Lord who sends plagues of blood and frogs and gnats and darkness and death.
I picture them a bit disappointed. Why do we have to be the exception? Can't we also just have land?
And I see the same thing in my own heart.
Why can't one place be home? Marriage has only doubled the multicultural confusion. Who are we? Can't we just have one country, one passport, one set of tax rules?
And I am a reluctant Levite.
But to reject being a Levite is to reject THE LORD as my inheritance.
My portion is Him. Instead of an earthly home, I get an eternal Home. My lot? Him.
Before I moved to Hungary, I memorized Psalm 16. This verse was always my favorite: The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
Long before I knew anything about God's plan for me here, He was preparing my heart... to choose Him as my portion, instead of reluctantly accepting it, or tolerating it. To recognize that instead of land and home, HE holds my lot. And the boundaries of my land? They fall in pleasant places. He has given me a beautiful inheritance.
To accept being a Levite is to accept being a wanderer.
But God is gracious. He gives the Levites cities. Cities and pasturelands out of the inheritance of the other tribes:
"The cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the people of Israel were in all forty-eight cities with their pasturelands." (Josh. 21:41)
God knew the Levites still needed home bases; they just weren't tied down to any one place.
In fact, in Deuteronomy it talks about giving the Levites freedom to serve the Lord and do ministry in any of these cities (Deut. 18). Other people lived and worked in their allotted land, but the Levites could travel and serve wherever there was need.
So in being a Levite, God has thrown open the doors of ministry.
He has cut the bonds of serfdom, those ties to the land, to country.
He has set us free to serve Him throughout all the world, to embrace Him as our only inheritance.
My heart waffles between being a reluctant Levite, and a dancing Levite... the heart of fear and resentment and the heart of celebration.
Today I choose to dance, even through the homesickness and the confusion.
I choose to dance in step with the Spirit, following His lead and knowing that the pillar of fire that led those same Levites now lives in me, to lead and guide me according to His will.
