The Blessing of Beneficial Consequences
By Bill Vanderbush
Maturity happens when you come to care about knowing what the people who have gone before you know. Immaturity is revealed in a young traveler who despises the voice of an older traveler speaking to them revealing where they are, because it feels condescending. And pride won’t entertain condescension. But the perspective is flawed for the older traveler is not calling down but rather calling back. It is the heartbreaking cry from the voice of a traveler who cannot call back to their younger self, warning of the perils of limited foresight. They call out across the gap of generations.
The generation gap is a chasm bridged by the wisdom of those farther along who care enough to call back while other old travelers, jaded or perhaps amused by the arrogance of the adventuring young traveler, delights to watch them learn by consequence the hard lessons they learned in their own formerly proud perspective. They have learned a valuable lesson. Never underestimate the educational value of consequences.
But what gives pause to the amused elder is that realization that not all consequences are the same. Some consequences you don’t recover from. Some leave scars of regret so deep that decades later the pain hasn’t subsided as much as deepened into either fear or wisdom. Fear is that crippling brokenness that pulls the parking brake on living. And perhaps that’s what keeps the young traveler from heeding the call of those further along. As they look ahead they see the pause of progress and despise the fear that made them quit. Rather than fear, the challenge to the old traveler is to move in wisdom, but keep moving.
Wisdom is the ability to spot regret in advance. It’s the ability to recognize that every choice has a consequence attached to it, and to choose the choices that carry the blessing of beneficial consequences.
So then it’s the old traveler who is still traveling who has the ability to inspire the young traveler coming along. It is with this heart that we hear an old traveler named Paul state in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” The wise old traveler recognizes that every old traveler is a young traveler to an even older traveler. We never stop being a student. The question we all must never stop asking is which old traveler are you going to follow? Paul evealed that the old traveler he was listening to was the one known as the Ancient of Days. He is a trustworthy guide for he is the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, who is aware of every step we’ve ever taken and who never leads us astray.
Jesus is the traveling God who is not afraid of the journey. The journey that takes him from the creator’s expression of the invention of humanity, forming mankind in his image, to stepping into the image of mankind only to be rejected to death by that very humanity. From the place of mankind’s greatest expression of cancellation, he forgives, redeems, and reconciles us in a journey through death and back to life again into a glory that doesn’t separate us from Him, but grants us access to that same glory. The glory of himself. And that’s why Jesus Christ is the oldest traveler who is worth following into the endless adventure that is the glory of God.
Journey on.
