When we are young, we constantly strive to be perceived and regarded as somewhat older than we are. We relish any opportunity to be included in the conversations or activities of an older caste; hanging out with the 'big kids', being able to sit at the 'grown-up' table at family gatherings, etc. Growing up itself is, in many ways, a process of testing the limits of when we might genuinely come to be included, in the perception of our peers and community, in that cumulative tier of maturity that is, at present, just beyond us.
Until such a time as this is the case, we pretend; enacting adventures, both dangerous and docile, smoking a stolen cigarette, or driving the parents car around an empty lot. We pretend until our fantasy of greater maturity is actually attained, at which point we set the sights of our hopeful pretense yet another rung higher. At some point, this process of pretense and attainment begins to climax; the distance between reality and what was initially only fantasy becoming less and less.
When I was six years old, perhaps I would pretend that I was a grown man with a job and a family, mimicking my father in the form of something that might be decades away. When I was in high school, perhaps the thought of college life captured my imagination; this only four years removed from my present. In our twenties, maybe it is a job we aspire to, or a promotion; ultimately things only months out of our reach, depending on circumstance... At some point, we are finally forced to realize that we have arrived at 'maturity'; that place of regard and responsibility that we have been striving and pretending at our whole lives, whether or not it actually looks like we had thought or hoped. Eventually, after coming to grips with this climax, many people find themselves, suddenly and strangely, wishing that they were younger.
But alas, the march of time knows no reverse. Our pretense only works in one direction.
It seems that I have arrived at a place that was only once a distant dream; career, promotion, responsibility... a wife, a house, and soon a child. I look around now, and I realize that all these people around me believe that this is who I really am; mature, responsible... an adult. And, I can't help but wonder when they'll find me out... when they'll realize that this is just a game. I wonder when they'll realize that I am really just a child who has been pretending to be grown... Because I don't have this thing figured out yet. I don't really know what I am doing. I'm just making all this up as I go along.
Life these days feels as if I am riding the crest of a wave; who I am and where I will be tomorrow doesn't actually exist until the moment I arrive... as if the ground itself that I am walking on does not exist until the moment my foot falls to meet it. I worry about the day when my imagination will fail me, when I will fail to imagine the next step into existence, causing me to stumble, and this house of cards to collapse. Because this is uncharted territory, filled with the unknown, threatening to bring me to the end of what my competency can muster.
But then I wonder if maybe... maybe this is what it means to walk by faith. Maybe this is the essence of what it means to allow God to lead us into the heart of a calling and a life that is greater than ourselves; greater than we can even imagine. Maybe it is here, as we are forced to reckon with the inability of our own competency to lead us into the realization of tomorrow, that we discover what faith really is. Maybe to be grown is not to come to the place where we believe that we've got this life figured out, but rather to realize that we never will; to surrender to trust that God will guide us into tomorrow, creating it before us even as we go.
The dew of creation is yet fresh upon this day. I did not know what it would hold before I got here, and tomorrow is hidden by the mists of pre-existence. But I will walk forward in the trust in my creator and sustainer; the giver of breath to my lungs and words to my heart. I do not have wisdom enough for even today, but his wisdom and love is sufficient to bring about all my days that have yet to be. So I cast myself upon Him, His hands and heart and purposes, in trust and faith, and in the divine joy that is found in surrender to the one who is truly sufficient for me.
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