Category: Christian faith

We do what we can

Flying over the Congo jungle is a mesmerizing experience. The WWF quotes the rainforest’s size at 500 million acres, which is a larger footprint than the whole of Alaska. All I could see was mile after mile of trees stretching into the distance.

Our group of about eight was in a small Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) plane, visiting places missionaries had established as ‘stations’ in the 1800s. We decided to abandon one planned visit because fighting had broken out nearby. Instead we’d go a day early to another village where there was no trouble. The pilot invited me to sit up front beside him.

We arrived over our new destination, a place no-one had flown into for many months. It was only what some would call ‘a hole in the jungle’ but as well as homes it had a church, a small hospital and a dirt airstrip. The pilot circled the plane several times, studying that airstrip. He was nervous about landing, or, more accurately, about whether we could take off again. Jungle encroaches on airstrips quickly from all sides, and though the pilot had been told the villagers had cut back the forest it didn’t look like they’d cut enough. He could land the plane, but he’d need more space to take off. We might be stuck there for days.

He decided to go for it, and down we went. The landing was bumpy, but no more than usual on dirt, and the plane came to rest at the end of the airstrip where enthusiastic villagers were waiting for us. The engine was switched off.

It was at exactly that moment about thirty men in army uniforms emerged from the jungle. Quickly they encircled our plane with their automatic weapons pointed at us. My front location got a perfect view of a trestle-mounted machine gun aimed right at the cockpit.

There are many militias in Congo, and there was no immediate way to know who these ‘soldiers’ were. Even government troops could be hostile. And these guys were seriously hostile.

A couple of our number got out to speak with them. A few minutes later they told us we must all get out. We clambered from the plane, and were marched at gunpoint towards the village. The people we’d come to see were super-excited, and sang and rushed back and forth in ways that clearly bothered our captors. My fear was that if they upset them too much, those soldiers might start shooting at random. Thankfully, it never came to that.

We got to the village, received a great welcome from village and church leaders and held a short service in the open air with gun wielding soldiers surrounding all of us. We were given food, and visited the hospital which, tragically, was very broken down but still the only facility which could care for people who might have walked for days through the jungle to get help.

At some point, a call of nature had to be answered. There was a toilet a couple of hundred yards away, but I wasn’t allowed to go alone. My soldier escort kept his weapon pointed in my direction even at my most vulnerable moment.

Apparently we’d aroused great suspicion because our changed plan meant we’d arrived on a day when we weren’t authorised. We couldn’t leave unless a commander from over the river permitted it. By late afternoon we were getting perilously near to sunset, and we couldn’t take off in the dark. Our MAF pilot was seriously afraid an overnight stay would result in his plane being stripped of essential components. That wouldn’t be good for the plane and not good for us because then we couldn’t leave at all.

With only half an hour before daylight would end, news arrived that the commander said we could go. ‘We’re leaving now’ said the pilot, with great emphasis on ‘now’. We were inside the plane in five minutes. The engine started, the plane lined up, and we set off down that airstrip at full power. No-one was sure we’d get into the air before we reached the jungle at the far end. The trees seemed to rush towards us. It looked impossible to miss them. Last second, the pilot pulled back on the stick and up we went, skimming the trees. We were airborne! I glanced out the window, and leaves from the jungle were hanging from the wing tips.

That visit was memorable. But, over the years, the suffering of ordinary people in Congo has been far more memorable than finding myself on the wrong end of soldiers’ guns.

What I also learned from that dramatic and life-threatening experience was a hard but important lesson: We are not as much in control of our lives as we think.

I have a passionate dislike of time management and life management books. Not because they lack any wisdom, but because of the core assumptions almost all of them contain: that we are masters of our destiny, and we can reach our goals if only we order our lives rightly.

I have an ethical problem with that, and believe there’s a major flaw in the logic.

My ethical problem is the inherent selfishness. One book praised the boss who had his secretary screen all incoming calls, and promise he’d return them between 4.00 and 5.00 in the afternoon. He wouldn’t call at any other time. That practice was praised as great time management. Yes, great for that boss, but not great for those told they had to make their schedules fit round his if they were to get his attention. I’ve seen similar advice given for answering emails. And I’ve known people willing to meet others only between hours they defined; if you couldn’t meet then, you didn’t meet at all.

Arrogant people must think they can make the world revolve around them. What if we universalized that form of time management, but all chose different times of the day to be available? Interactions would be impossible.

The flaw in much time and life management thinking is this. Let’s liken it to driving a fairground dodgem (bumper) car. And let’s imagine no other cars are on the track or they’re all stationary. Then driving would be easy. But real life isn’t a static dodgem track. It’s a dodgem track full of people driving crazily, right into our path, crashing us from the side and from behind, jarring our bones and almost toppling us over.

The hard reality is that we can’t regiment the world around us. No matter how good we are at strategizing, planning, organizing, life refuses to be ordered or controlled. The messy world we navigate has events and people crashing into us from all angles. None of us on that plane imagined we’d be surrounded by armed soldiers in a clearing in the jungle. No-one has ready-made strategies for extreme events like that, nor for hundreds of parallel though ordinary happenings in our lives.

So, what do we do? We can’t make problems melt away, and not every circumstance can have a happy ending. Therefore we do what we can. We try not to freeze or panic, or to sit down and moan about the unfairness of life. Probably most of us have surrendered to reactions like these sometimes. But nothing good comes that way.

My ‘we do what we can’ philosophy kicked in during the final stages of my theology degree. A large part of my overall mark depended on a 20,000 word dissertation. My future plans for PhD study also rested on that dissertation. But I was getting nowhere. After months of work the project would not come together. Then one day, out of the blue, a whole new angle on the subject flashed into my mind. But following that intuition would mean starting all over again. I described the new idea to Alison, but added, ‘There just isn’t enough time to do that now.’

‘Are you sure? What if you just start and see what you can do?’

She was right. And I did just start. The research went well, and the writing went well. There was a crisis when a friend typing my draft to dissertation standard suddenly went into hospital. But I found another typist, and the dissertation was handed in with two days to spare. It got good marks, and I was admitted to the PhD programme. In this world we don’t sail on a calm sea. We face storms. Some are minor and some major. Some won’t harm us and some threaten everything. In the Congo jungle I wasn’t in control of the outcome. It was a time to trust God and get on with doing what I could, which was spending time with deeply impoverished people. I’ve practised a ‘do everything you can’ approach many times now. It doesn’t make life easy, but it has meant I keep moving forward. And that’s a good thing.

Serious business

As I drove past, I barely noticed the broken down car on the grass verge at the side of the road. Except, something had caught my eye. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said to my wife, Alison. ‘Did you see the sticker on the back of that car?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Why? What did it say?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘But if it’s anything like what I think it was…’ I found the first safe place to U-turn, back we went and pulled up beside the abandoned car.

The very prominent sticker on the rear of the car was what I thought it was. In big bold letters it said: Got a problem? Just try Jesus!

I don’t have any issue with encouraging troubled people to turn to Jesus. It’s the right thing to do when you have problems, and even better to do it before you have problems.

But I do have issues with that way of communicating the message.

The least of my issues was that the sticker was a bad advert in those circumstances. That car looked like it had been broken down for several days. ‘Got a problem? Just try Jesus!’ clearly hadn’t got the car going. If I’d driven past it every day, I’d have been thinking, ‘What Jesus wants you to try now is calling a garage or a rescue service.’

However, I had more significant problems with that car sticker.

A 21st century generation isn’t won over by trite messages. Sloganizing doesn’t impress. I’ve come across sayings like these:

  • Why worry when you can pray
  • Know God, Know Peace; No God, No Peace.
  • Let Go and Let God
  • When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out alright.
  • 1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4 Given

I almost like the Jonah saying, but it’s funny and understandable only for people who know their bibles. They, presumably, are not the target audience.

 Some slogans are much more troublesome than my examples.

An associate minister told me that, when he was younger, he used ‘conversation starters’ with university students.

‘What kind of conversation starters?’ I asked.

He listed them. I shuddered. The worst was probably ‘Turn or burn’. The rest were nearly as dreadful and offensive.

‘Who did you say them to?’ I hoped they were people he knew well and who wouldn’t be too upset. I was wrong.

‘I’d go up to students in a bus queue, tap them on the shoulder, and let them have it.’

It’s a wonder they didn’t let him have it. He thought his shoot-from-the-hip approach would get them talking. I suspect what most people said was ‘Go away,’ but with less polite language. When I asked him if he still used that technique sometimes, he said, ‘No, it didn’t work’.

Now there’s a surprise.

Some advertisers still sloganize, but many of the best prefer to tell a story or make people smile. They don’t smack them in the mouth with their message. They want people to think, and use subtlety and humour to achieve that. (Do an internet search for john lewis christmas adverts and you’ll see what I mean.)

In what most call the ‘western world’, there are two disturbing truths. One is that few people believe in God in a deep sense. The second is that many people have never even thought about God in a deep sense. We need to make people think, but slogans won’t do that. What’s easily said is easily dismissed. We can do better.

Slogans aren’t appropriate for serious business. And Christianity is serious business. One of the most important conversations of my life occurred when I was 17. I never expected it, and the way it happened was very odd.

My first year in journalism included study, and a few days of the journalism course were spent with other young reporters at a residential centre. The place was no upmarket conference suite; facilities were basic. I was allocated to share a room with John and Graham. I knew both of them already, including a strange peculiarity of John’s. He liked black. He liked everything around him to be black. His hair was jet black, and his clothes were all black (long before that was anyone else’s fashion choice). He told me how his parents had responded when he wanted black curtains, ‘John you’ve already got black wallpaper and now you want black curtains…?’He got his black curtains. John was a likeable one-off.

Late that evening each of us climbed into our narrow, dormitory-style beds, and John switched off the light. He also liked darkness. But the three of us talked, about lots of things and then one of them mentioned God. John was unmercifully direct: ‘So, what do each of you think about God?’ Graham mumbled something about reaching the age of ten and giving up believing God existed. Then it was my turn.

‘I believe in God…’ I said hesitantly. There was silence. They expected me to say more, but I didn’t have anything more to say. John and Graham had studied journalism with me for several months. They knew me. I’d never mentioned God before, and my lifestyle wasn’t bad but no advert for Christianity.

Then John’s voice came out of the darkness. ‘I respect you believing in God, but what I can’t respect is that you don’t then do anything about it.’

I remember nothing more of what was said that night. But John’s sentence stayed in my mind in bold capitals. ‘…WHAT I CAN’T RESPECT IS THAT YOU DON’T THEN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.’

When those words were still there next morning, and the one after that, I decided I had to talk to the minister of the church I (sometimes) attended.

But the minister went away to another church.

I went away for seven months to report the news in another city.

What never went away was that sentence spoken in the dark, by the unlikeliest of friends. How could I believe in God but do nothing in response to that?

After my seven month exile I returned, and found there was a new minister at the church. His name was Peter, and he seemed friendly. Almost my first sentence to him was, ‘I need to speak with you about God.’

One day every week after that I met with Peter, and  we talked about what lived-out faith meant. Gradually it made more sense. Late one Thursday night – really late – there was a moment when all my thoughts came together. I knew I had to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to God. If ‘yes’ my commitment would be everything. If ‘no’ I’d never go back to church. And, in the dark, at 2.40 that morning, my decision was made.

Next day, as soon as work was over, I phoned Peter and said I had to see him as soon as possible. ‘Come now, if you like,’ he replied.

Thirty minutes later I rang Peter’s door bell, was welcomed inside, and I told him what had happened early that morning, and that I’d said ‘yes’. I couldn’t have been more excited. Peter was too. We laughed, we prayed, and from that day on my life changed. A man called John had caused me to find a man called Peter – it sounds so biblical – and now I knew what believing in God had to mean: my life lived for him.

I’ve described that deeply personal story because it illustrates something very significant: Christianity is serious business. We can reject it or accept it. What we can’t do is be complacent or casual about it. We can’t tuck faith away in a corner of our minds, dust it off occasionally, but mostly do nothing about it. It’s far too important for that.

That’s why it’s wrong to tell people to just ‘try Jesus’.

A slogan saying ‘try Levis’ is fine because if you buy jeans and don’t like them you return them to the store or consign them to the ‘rarely used clothes’ shelf in the wardrobe. That’s okay, because jeans are a ‘take it or leave it’ commodity.

God is not a commodity. We can’t try God on for size, and if he doesn’t fit we’ll return him or ignore him. My strange friend John had helped me realise that you can’t really believe in God and do that. Believing in God must mean following God, and that’s a serious business.

A much more serious business than any bumper sticker can communicate.

Unconditional love

I am being followed. Not by the intelligence services. Not a stalker. But, almost anywhere I go, he’s there. Watching, listening, taking account of everything I do. I know who’s doing it. I even know his name. It’s Mac. He’s been after me for years.

Mac is my dog. We have two dogs, but Mac is my follower. If I walk across the room, he comes too. When I sit down, he lies nearby. If I go to my home office, Mac joins me. (He’s here right now.) When I go to the bathroom, Mac would be there too, except I refuse him entry. But he’ll wait just outside for me.

I’ve no idea why he’s so devoted. He just is. My companion, day after day after day.

I read something today that seems to give Mac a higher love and loyalty rating than God. Here it is:

As long as you praise the lord and love him with all your heart and repent your sins, he will always love you with his unconditional love.

Within 27 words, the writer has managed to contradict himself. I don’t suppose he realises it, but what he’s said is: ‘Here are the conditions to get something which has no conditions.’

The conditions he specifies are what you must do to be loved by God. ‘As long as…’ introduces three requirements: you must praise the Lord; you must love him with all your heart; you must repent of your sins. Fulfil these, and you get ‘unconditional love’ from God. That’s contradictory! You can’t lay down conditions to be loved and also call that love unconditional.

The writer’s sentence is what most would call a quid pro quo statement. ‘If you do this, I’ll do that.’ In other words, you give something, you get something. If you don’t give, you don’t get.

A troubling truth is that quid pro quo language is common. We are told it, and we tell it. When I was young, the run-up to Christmas would be peppered with warnings from my parents: ‘You’ve not been at your best this year… Santa won’t bring you presents unless you’re a good boy.’ Conditions. I confess I passed on equivalent warnings to my children, and not just at Christmas. Statements like: ‘If you don’t tidy up your bedroom, you won’t get to watch your favourite TV programme’. Conditions.

We’re bombarded with messages which say that to be popular you must have great social skills, be clever, and perhaps above all look good. An appalling example is the song Keep young and beautiful. According to the lyrics you must get rid of body fat, and take care of your charms to be in someone’s arms. The refrain is: ‘Keep young and beautiful if you want to be loved’. So, if you’re old and wrinkly, no-one will love you. As someone increasingly old and wrinkly, I’m disturbed. Actually, we should all be offended.

But the song, and much advertising, fits with the self-esteem deficits most of us have, consciously or subconsciously. Somewhere inside lurks the dark thought: ‘No-one’s going to love me unless I deserve it’. That’s damaging logic for human relations.

It’s even worse logic when applied to our relationship with God, because our efforts to earn acceptance will never be enough.

So it’s just as well they don’t have to be. God doesn’t love anyone, not even the best of the saints, because of their goodness. He has loved us long before we knew it, thought about it, or reacted to it. I’ve always been moved by the sentence in Romans chapter 5: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (v.8) Nothing about Jesus’ sacrifice depended on a religious background, a meritorious life, praying a lot, reading the Bible from cover to cover, or anything else we might have believed would impress God or merit his love. Which is just as well for me, because I could never have earned it.

At least the writer of the contradictory sentence included the two important words: ‘unconditional love’. That is the right description of God’s love. There’s no quid pro quo. We don’t give something so God will give something. We don’t go half way to God so he’ll come half way to us. God is one hundred per cent the giver. He comes all the way to us.

Absolutely it’s essential that we receive that love, surrender our lives, and follow him wherever that takes us on life’s journey. But his love is utterly and simply just given. Wonderfully unconditional.

‘Okay Mac, it’s time for lunch,’ I say. And off we go…

Going out on a limb

I was ten years old. Adventurous, brave, ready for any challenge. I crossed the field opposite our house, clambered over a barbed wire fence, leapt the small stream, then climbed the second barbed wire fence. I joined boys my age and older taking turns on, what seemed to me, the longest rope swing in the world. The bravest person in the world must have climbed high up a large oak, and tied the rope to one of the topmost branches. Now it hung almost to the ground, with a thick knot in the rope for holding on. This was the mother and father of all rope swings.

I watched what the boys did. It would be tame to start swinging from ground level, so a boy would climb up the tree, edge his way out on a thick branch, and another boy would pass the rope up to him. He’d hold that rope as tightly as he could, launch off the branch and swing down and forward, skimming the ground, rise up the other side, and keep going back and forth as long as the ‘pendulum’ lasted.

‘Looks scary’ I murmured to one of my friends. He agreed, but added ‘It’s not too bad providing you know exactly what to do.’

‘What do I need to do?’ I asked.

‘Well you’ve got to hold really tight.’

Okay. I had no problems understanding that.

‘When you launch yourself out you must do it with a slight curve. If you swing away in a straight line, when you return you’ll crash into the branch you started from and break your back.’

I took a deep breath.

‘But you can’t launch out at too much of an angle because…’ he pointed to the fence I’d climbed earlier ‘…you’ll curve round into the barbed wire. You wouldn’t want to do that.’

He was right. I didn’t. Another deep breath.

‘And, as soon as you step off the branch you must get your knees up quick or you’ll break your legs against the ground.’

I stopped breathing at all.

‘So have you got all that?’ my friend asked.

‘I think so,’ I gulped.

‘Repeat it back to me then.’

So I did. ‘Climb up to the branch. Get a super tight hold on the rope. Launch off at a slight curve so you don’t crush your spine swinging back into the branch. But not too much of a curve or you’ll go right into the barbed wire fence.’

‘What else?‘ he asked.

‘Oh, and get my knees up fast or I’ll break my legs on the ground.’

‘Perfect,’ he pronounced. ‘You’ll do fine.’

And with that reassurance, I was pushed towards the tree.

I had serious doubts about how fine I’d be. But with twenty lads from my school standing round, I’d no choice. ‘Do or die!’ I thought, not at all certain which of those two was about to happen.

I clambered up the tree, and edged my way out on the branch, clutching tightly to twigs and leaves to steady myself. The rope was pulled up to me. It felt very strong. I felt very weak. But I would do this.

I knew the routine. Hold the rope firmly. Go out at a slight angle. Not too much to risk the barbed wire. Knees up to protect my legs. Got it!

I gripped super-tight, closed my eyes… And let go. Not from the branch. I let go of the rope. I just hadn’t been able to make myself launch out and swing. To the mocking of the crowd I climbed down from the tree.

I climbed up to the branch twice more in the next hour. Rehearsed in my head exactly what I had to do. And then pathetically climbed down again. Head held low, I eventually went home.

Next morning – refreshed and determined – I went back. No-one else was there. That made the swing impossible because someone had to pass the rope up to you on the branch.

A few minutes later my friend David arrived. He hadn’t been there yesterday, and wanted to know how to use the swing.

‘I can tell you exactly how to do it,’ I said brightly. I gave him the whole speech. Hold tight. Go out at a slight angle, but not too much or you’ll be in the barbed wire fence. And get your knees up fast or you’ll break your legs.

‘Got it?’ I asked.

‘Got it!’ he said. ‘Let’s do this.’

Up the tree he went and out onto the branch. I passed the rope to him. He took one deep breath, and off he went. Perfect. Knees up – angle just right – no broken legs, no broken back – just a long and glorious swing. He enjoyed it so much he did it twice more.

‘Now you,’ David said. He’d sensed my nervousness, and encouraged me. ‘You know exactly what to do. You’ll be fine. Up you go.’

So up I went. Along the branch I went. And as I took the rope from David, I knew he was right. I could do this. I would do this.

I counted slowly: One, Two. Three. Drew in an enormous breath, flexed my legs, tightened my grip. And then… Then I did nothing at all. I just stood there. I counted again, breathed in again, prepared every muscle again. Still didn’t move. One more time and I’d do it. But I didn’t. I climbed down from the tree.

Two or three more times that day I went up the tree. Each time I thought through what I had to do. I knew it. I’d seen others do it. I’d even taught others to do it. But I just couldn’t get off that branch.

I must have been very fond of that branch! I hated that branch! With all my being, I loathed it. I didn’t want to stay standing there. But I did.

Why? Because that branch was safe. Nothing bad could happen to me as long as I stood still. But if I stepped off holding just that rope…? What if it all went wrong? I didn’t step off. I revisited that branch on several more days, but never once used that swing. Not ever.

Only crazy people want to feel unsafe. But when the desire for security becomes the controlling power over our life, we’re in a bad place. We cling to what we have rather than risk something uncertain. A new challenge or opportunity is screened out by default.

In my mid fifties, I was invited to become President of a seminary (a graduate college, mostly preparing people for Christian ministry) in the suburbs of Chicago. It would be a great privilege, but leaving the UK for the USA would also mean a great sacrifice. I loved the work I’d been doing for twelve years directing and overseeing life-changing mission projects around the world. People appreciated my leadership. I was secure. Everyone assumed I’d be there until I retired. We had children and grandchildren nearby. Our lives were good, and safe, and comfortable. But Alison and I decided we couldn’t stay. What felt right with God was moving on, moving away, letting go of what we had for the new thing he meant us to do.

When we shared our news, thankfully no-one said ‘Glad you’re going!’ Some were truly and visibly sad that we’d no longer be near. Some were excited for us because they could see why the new post was a great fit.

And some were shocked. The change made no sense to them. How could we leave our nice house, a secure and important job, and especially how could we go so far away from our family? Several said: ‘I could never do that’.

I thanked them for their concern. But, afterwards, I wasn’t sure they’d said exactly what they meant. Their words were ‘I could never do that’ but probably their meaning was ‘I wouldn’t do that’. Of course they could move to live and work in America. But they wouldn’t.

It troubled me when Christians said that. They knew I believed the move was what God wanted, but they implied I could refuse. They would have refused if faced with the same challenge. I couldn’t. I have always understood that when I gave my life to God, it really was given. Not given with an escape clause allowing me to opt out if I didn’t like what God asked. To say ‘No Lord’ involves a contradiction. If God is Lord, saying ‘no’ is an impossible response.

But this isn’t an issue only for Christians, I’m troubled that anyone would cling so tightly to their status quo that they couldn’t consider any change. I’m not advocating rashness. But to prioritise safety, security, comfort rather than take any risk results only in missed opportunities and an unfulfilled life.

Getting off our safe branch can be immensely hard. But a life well-lived is hard. And one of the worst regrets in older years is the memory of being on the edge of stepping out into an exciting new venture but instead climbing down and never doing what you knew you could and should do. Sometimes letting go and stepping out is scary but it can be exactly the right thing.