Exodus

In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, popular speaker and businessman, Robert Kiyosaki, encourages readers to escape the “Rat Race” and embrace a life of financial freedom. In his book “Leaving Egypt,” Reformed pastor and counsellor Chuck DeGroat encourages readers to break free of all that entraps and enslaves, and pursue the promise of a full and free life. Near the end of his popular book Kiyosaki hints that the principles he promotes as being favourable to financial freedom are the same ones that lead to other freedoms we were meant to enjoy too.

“It's not enough to leave Egypt, one must also enter the Promised Land.” - St. John Chrysotom

I found the similarities in the messages fascinating, especially in light of the Arabah project I’m immersed in right now.  In their own way both authors point us to the promised land, inspire hope for the journey and encourage readers to take bold, faithful action to leave “Egypt” behind. Both Kiyosaki and DeGroot suggest that the way out of the “Rat Race,” or our own “Egypts,” requires a change in mindset (desiring better), a journey of discovery (the desert) and a lot of hard but meaningful work (a call to action). I was reminded of Paul’s words in Romans 12:2 where he talks about transformation starting with the renewal of one’s mind and Proverbs which says hard work results in profit (Proverbs 14:23)

It led me to reflect on several questions.

What am I enslaved to?

What lies, beliefs, attitudes are currently holding me back?

What habits do I have that might be working at odds against my goals?

What are my goals?

What do I want?

Why do I want that?

What do I really want?

Is that what God wants for me?

What have I settled for?

Both authors talk at length about fear and desires. Fear, they agree, is the root of much human suffering. They also warn against a simple strategy of pain avoidance which most certainly leads to further entrapment and enslavement. Our desires, they say, are often too weak. DeGroat says “People don’t really want to be cured. What they want is relief. A cure is painful.” “Our greatest vulnerability” he continues “may actually be how ready we are to settle.” It appears that in the process of wealth creation, body building or spiritual maturity another old proverb rings true: “No Pain, No Gain.”

I was interested in what the authors had to say about the importance and role of our desires for another reason. This past month, while doing some planning, my wife and I came across Michael Hyatt’s little doodle comparing The Doom Loop (Egypt if you will) and The Growth Trajectory (the land of milk and honey?). We get stuck in the doom loop, says Michael, with a passive mindset that says “I’ll try tomorrow” or worse, “It’ll never get better than this.”  The Growth Trajectory requires a mindset of agency and honesty about our aspirations. This idea lines up with something story-expert Donald Miller (StoryBrand) teaches about story. Every story ever told, says Miller, starts with a character who wants something. There is typically something standing in the way of the character getting what they want and so begins the conflict and the hero’s journey of transformation. Notice how everything comes back to what we want.

I’ve often hesitated and even balked at this notion. Thinking and talking about what I want and making plans to acquire it seems selfish to me. DeGroat calls this a slavery-induced self-deprecation and wonders how often we justify a scarcity/slave mindset with spiritual half truths. But how can we execute our offices of Prophet, Priest and King if we still identify primarily as slaves and hopeless sinners? Is all desire bad? Have we not been set free? Are we really without hope?

Are we, as C.S. Lewis suggests:

“…half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

Are we, in fact, far too easily pleased?

Could we examine our desires at a slightly deeper level?

This year we asked ourselves:

What do we want….

-       To have?

-       To do?

-       To experience? And most importantly…

-       To be?

Then we asked: Who or what benefits from us getting what we want?

Finally we asked: Do our desires align with what God wants for us and those around us?

This was a very helpful exercise for me that led to greater honesty with myself and others about what I truly want. In some cases it was cause for confession and repentance. In others it was cause for greater affirmation and encouragement.

Try it yourself!

What do you want?

-       To Have?

-       To Do?

-       To Experience?

-       To be?

Who or what benefits if you get what you want?

Do your desires align with what God wants for you and those around you?

Everyone’s Egypt is different. Someone is trapped in a toxic relationship and another trapped in an unsatisfying or unfulfilling job. Someone is enslaved to the consumption of substances and another to the consumption of media and/or information. We suffer from a lack of courage, weak desires and a propensity to settle. We justify our inactivity a million ways but mostly it boils down to fear. 

The way out of Egypt is to desire better and to desire it enough to leave what we know behind. There are no freeways to the promised land. In between leaving and arriving is a long journey of discovery in the wilderness. Both Kiyosaki and DeGroat offer fair warning: We will be tempted to turn back and return to Egypt – the evil we know, the slave master who provides some level of security even while robbing us of our greater potential. Better the devil we know, we seem to think, than the God we’re not sure we can trust.

But by God’s grace we’ll get to a place of frustration and cry out for rescue. And he’ll hear, he’ll care, he’ll call, invite, even drive us if he needs to into the desert where we will be free, maybe for the first time, of all the noise in our heads. He’ll strip every false idol and mask and identity we’ve created for ourselves. He’ll help us experience both our deep need for him and the depth of his abundant provision. Only when we have learned who we truly are and who he truly is are we ready to enter the promised land.

I admit, it was an odd combination of books to bring on vacation. I liked one far more than the other and although the point of this post is not to review or endorse these works I can say both turned out to be profitable and inspiring reads. The Exodus story is historical fact. Egypt, the desert and the Promised Land are real places. They are also powerful metaphors for our lives. Life can be hard but you can experience a certain joy in the journey when you know the destination holds something better and when difficulty drives deeper dependancy on God who is the source of all that is far better than you could ever imagine.