I spent somewhere between 30-60% of my day pondering the Hunger Games. After a close call with a tornado last week, I began to rate my survival techniques by considering the very realistic hypothetical of being placed in a large technologically advanced arena with 23 other people poised to slit my throat, all while evading man made death traps.
When the news let me know that a tornado was headed down my street in 18 minutes, my mom called in a semi-panic. Yeah, Mom, I have a survival plan: I put on tennis shoes, duh. Why?
1. I’m not a country bumpkin and when the news trucks comes, I want to look my best.
2. When the zombies attack and everyone is running a muck in chaos, I can easily trip the lady running next to me who will stub her toe because she grabbed something stupid like a flashlight instead of putting shoes on. Hey, hope that mattress over your tub was helpful. Oh wait..that’s right, you just got eaten by a zombie because your feet were sliced up by shards of glass. Sorry, about ya, but I’m about to go pillage this Family Dollar for treats. I’m not going down in this apocalypse.
I also threw a knife in my already stocked backpack full of granola bars, some water and a clean pair of clothes (weird, right? I never shower, but I think clean clothes are a solid choice.). I’m an offensive player; I don’t want to get put on the defensive all day. You never get a leg up. And the careers get to keep eating all the food.
According to Pinterest (known for its accuracy, much like Wikipedia), 58% of females between the ages of 16-24 want to be like Katniss, which is interesting since she is a cynical, untrusting girl who shuns marriage and was raised in the school of hard knocks….not to mention that she spends a large majority of her time in excruciating pain, both physical and emotional, struggling to maintain a grasp on reality and figure out who she is and what she stands for. Right, ladies, that sounds delightful.
I have a issue with getting inappropriately attached to characters. I have more empathy for them, than real people…who I see every day. This poor girl is taken from the only place she has ever known to fight for her life, and that is the easy part. She is constantly in her own literal wilderness. Unknown, foreign and dangerous. And no one is there to lead her home. Luckily, the wilderness of my life doesn’t involve Tracker Jackers, and I am never in the lead.
"Therefore, I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” Hosea 2:14
Do we identify with Katniss because God leads us into our own wilderness regularly? It is in that alien place that I find myself growing deeper in love with my Christ. There is a chasm created in my soul when I find myself drifting through the mundane tasks of my day. Knowing what meetings lay before me and what my menu holds when I finish my daily workout, along the same path I have traveled since I started this blog. But, when God leads me to those places of delight, meant only for my heart, my soul awakens to the wonders I so long ago forgot.
Nowhere on my urban journey do I have to fend off mutated rodents, or dodge knives hurtling at my chest, instead my wilderness is the sheer vastness of the unknown that lies in my path. Dodging doubt, insecurity and societal pressure as God allures me further away from myself, away from what I knew or worse, expected, and closer towards the richness He has intended for me, whether it is what I want or not.
He never promised me what I wanted.
My favorite lyrics are from Needtobreathe’s “Keep Your Eyes Open”:
Just past the circumstance, the first light a second chance
No child could ever dance the way you do oh
Tear down the prison walls, don't stop the curtain calls
Your chains will never fall until you do
'Cus if you never leave home, never let go
You'll never make it to the great unknown
Till you keep your eyes... open my love
No child could ever dance the way you do oh
Tear down the prison walls, don't stop the curtain calls
Your chains will never fall until you do
'Cus if you never leave home, never let go
You'll never make it to the great unknown
Till you keep your eyes... open my love
If we maintain our status quo, experiencing only those things that are safe and secure, we will never lose the chains that we willingly placed on our limbs, holding us back from discovering the beauty of the wild. It took me quite a while to understand what they meant by ‘no child could ever dance the way you do’. Children are kept safe by their parents, completely provided for under the nurturing hand, ensuring comfort and stability. They have not been to the wilderness. Our joy comes from not simply surviving the hardships we encounter, it comes from the completeness that perseverance brings (James 1).
You weren’t called to survive, beloved. You were called to commune; you were called to be allured; you were called to trust and love; you were called to the wilderness.
