Exodus 3:1-12
I'd recommend visiting the link that I shared in Day 1--the notes for this Lent devotional are really good!
They are too long for me to copy and paste, but I'll quote this particular bullet point today:
"Moses' encounter also leaves him with a sense of calling, direction, and purpose. On the one hand, like Abram, Moses has a calling to do something very much in keeping with his life circumstances and history. He is a Hebrew child who intimately knows Egyptian culture and leadership--who better to negotiate the Israelite exodus out of Egypt and back to Canaan? On the other hand, Moses finds the task overwhelming. He is assured, though, that God will be with him in the task."
Moses and the burning bush--another one of my favorite encounters between God and human. A friend and I talked about Moses' call to leadership the other day. His mother "played the system" in order to save his life (he was put out onto the river for the Egyptian princess to find), and he was raised in a place of privilege, but eventually had to come to terms with his real (Israelite) identity.
I can relate, and so can my brother, I imagine.
Our mother avoided putting us through the public school system in order to raise us with a bilingual and Christian household and curriculum. We were exposed to people and philosophies that many of our Asian American counterparts were not. Our parents really stepped out of the box when it came to the churches we attended growing up, so we know how to relate to many kinds of people.
It's rather lonely, though, to be so connected to one's heritage (I am much more fluent in Mandarin than most American-borns, and I can talk to my parents about pretty much everything--from theology to sex to current events--whereas many of my peers have surface-level interactions with adults) AND so able to code-switch between various settings and social circles. Inhabiting liminality necessitates a kind of "mavericking" that entails independence over interdependence, it feels. Versatility is empowering, but it is also lonely.
During one of the very first chapel services I ever attended at Yale Divinity School, in which a drum and fife were used in a processional, I heard God whisper into my ear, "You march to the beat of your own drum."
That encounter with Divine calling set the tone for my time at Yale, and I never felt pressured to conform to larger systems. Instead, I operated subversively within the system, at times, and sought to transcend it.
The child of a professor, I have never felt intimidated by academia, even though I know I'm not the smartest one there. I feel most at home in the University setting, and every day that I have worked at a job in the "real world," I have longed to go back.
Later on in Moses' story, he has to rather awkwardly and painfully sort out who he really is. (He kills an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave; later, when he tries to break up a fight between 2 Hebrew slaves, he gets flack for it--"Are you going to kill us like you killed the Egyptian?") Moses has an ethnic identity, but he also has a cultural one. He was born into the Israelite community, but he was never a slave like "the rest of them" and probably adopted much of Egyptian palace culture. (Sometimes my brother and I have been called "whitewashed" by Asian American peers. I wonder if Moses faced similar accusations.) Ultimately, it is his spiritual identity that allows him to integrate all of who he is to become a leader, but such things take time.
I have always longed to find a partner who could relate to being a "third culture kid." (This term is usually used for missionary kids who've grown up abroad, but I'm co-opting it to apply to anyone who's been forced to constantly code-switch all their life.) My brother has said the same thing before.
Sadly, such people are hard to find, and instead, I've had to learn how to share my views and experiences with others (who want to be close to me) in order to help them get on the same page (emotionally, spiritually, mentally, logistically).
Ultimately, my identity is found in God, who has promised to be with me in the journey.
And who is this God?
The God who said, "I AM who I AM."
Now isn't that the biggest identity-conundrum of them all?
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