Category: Life’s challenges

The green-eyed monster

What is prohibited in the Ten Commandments, included among the acts of the flesh in the New Testament, listed as one of the seven deadly sins, and described by Shakespeare as the green-eyed monster? *

The answer is envy.

It’s hard to imagine there’s anyone who hasn’t been envious. You might think it’s especially a failing in affluent societies, a temptation of people in suburbia who ‘want to keep up with the Joneses’. Whatever others have, they want it too. But envy also happens in the poorest of places. Someone has a better tea pot, or bicycle, or job, or a rich relative who sends them money, and others want these things too.

It’s an understandable sin. We all want our lives to be better, so we envy those who have things or connections or abilities which would improve our lives, if only we had them too.

Sometimes we justify our envy. ‘It’s not fair they have these things,’ we reason. ‘Why shouldn’t I have them as well?’

I studied Human Resources as part of my management degree. One paper described how staff reacted when the work was demanding but the pay poor. Interestingly, their research showed that employees would work for low wages providing everyone doing that work had the same low wage. But if some were paid more, those on less were seriously discontent. They wanted parity. They wanted what others were getting.

On the whole, though, few try to justify envy. Down the ages envy, and its close cousin jealousy, is considered wrong.

I’m going to set out three ways in which envy is harmful. I’ll finish by adding three rather different thoughts.

First, how envy harms lives.

Envy is a cruel master

I spent a lot of time trying to help Gwyn and Julie. People would think they were a great couple with two wonderful children. But they had a secret. They were lost in a maze of unpayable debts. They owed money to the bank and on five different credit cards, and when they’d maxed out on their limits, they’d borrowed from short-term lenders at astronomical interest rates. That wasn’t all. They’d bought from several catalogue companies, the kind where you pay small sums every week but the overall cost of goods is high. And they owed significant sums for unpaid utility services and local taxes.

I sat with them for hours, tried to list every outstanding amount, and, just when I thought we were done, Julie or Gwyn would remember another debt. They were deeply submerged in a financial swamp. Debt collectors phoned constantly and banged on their front door at all hours.

The couple seemed unable to think straight so, on their behalf, I began contacting credit card providers, banks and catalogue companies. Most of them were amenable to working out payment arrangements. I introduced them to a friendly bank manager, and we considered consolidating all their debts and structuring a payment plan.

But, just before any of those remedial arrangements went into effect, I saw Gwyn and Julie’s children playing on brand-new bicycles. How could they have those new bikes? I caught up with their parents, and asked for an explanation. ‘All their friends seemed to have new bicycles, and we couldn’t let our children not have them too,’ Julie said. I asked how they found money to buy them. Sheepishly she said, ‘We got them from a catalogue company we’d never used before’. More debt. Soon after Gwynn and Julie were made bankrupt. I lost touch but I believe their marriage fell apart a year or two later.

There are three hard truths from Gwynn and Julie’s story. First, the fundamental problem behind most of their debt? They saw what others had and they had to have it too. Second, their envy was uncontrolled. It got them into debt, and then more debt. Third, despite outward appearances, and despite all they bought, Gwyn and Julie were miserable. So miserable, it ended their relationship.

Envy is a cruel and destructive master.

Envy is insatiable

Envy doesn’t have limits. It’s inexhaustible. We may think, ‘If only I have this, then I’ll be satisfied.’ But we’re not. We will always see something better than what we have already, and we’ll want that too.

One of my favourite podcasts is ‘No Stupid Questions’. A recent episode had the title: Why Do We Want What We Can’t Have? ** The presenters included the story of a stone cutter who constantly wanted something better for his life.

A stone cutter is passing the house of a wealthy merchant and sees his expensive and fancy possessions, and his important visitors, and he says to himself ‘Wow, that merchant must be so powerful. It must be amazing to be like that.’

The next day he wakes up as the merchant. So he’s happy for a while. Then he sees a high-ranking, important government official being carried in a sedan by his servants. And he thinks ‘Woah! How powerful that official must be.’

The next day he becomes the official, and this trend continues and the guy becomes the sun, he becomes a big storm cloud, and he becomes the wind. Then he finds that the one thing he can’t move when he’s the wind is a massive rock so he grows envious of the rock.

And next day he’s the rock. One day he hears the sound of a hammer hitting his surface and he thinks ‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute – what could be more powerful than me, the rock? And he looks down and sees a stone cutter…

That story says it all. Envy is never satisfied. There’s always one thing more, then another and another, an unending lust for things better than those we have already. In the end it get us nowhere.

Envy is no judge of what really matters

I arrived in the car park of the golf club, and began getting my gear out of the car. I was getting ready to play in a pairs match – my partner and I against two golfers from another club. My partner arrived in his Jaguar. Then the first of our opponents drove into the car park in his Porsche. Minutes later our second opponent came in his Audi S5. I hadn’t come in any of these elite models of car. I came in my Nissan. For a moment I wished I had one of their cars. I wouldn’t have been fussy. Any of them would be fine. But I caught myself quickly, realising ‘I already have a good car. It does everything I want a car to do.’ What matters with a car is that it gets you from A to B with reasonable comfort, safety and reliability. My car does that. The brand name is not what’s important.

Envy doesn’t think like that. Envy casts greedy eyes over anything supposedly better or more desirable than what you have already, and says ‘You should have that’.

Envy doesn’t think of affordability, or climate impact, or even suitability. It considers only things like prestige, speed, and impressing others. They are not the things that really matter.

I’ll finish with three rather different points about envy. The first will seem surprising.

  • Sometimes envy pushes people to do the right thing

Envy is a bad driver, but occasionally points us in a good direction. I’ll give an example.

While I worked in America, my car was a Subaru. I’d never owned a Subaru or any 4 x 4 car before, but it was the right car to have for the snow and ice of a Chicago winter. I deeply appreciated that car’s road-holding ability when the temperature was minus 18F. But what I most enjoyed was its reversing camera. Put the car into reverse, and a rear-facing camera showed an image on the dashboard of whatever was behind. I loved showing that to friends. Some said, ‘Wow! I wish I had that feature on my car.’ That was envy. But a good envy, because reversing cameras don’t just prevent you reversing into a wall, they stop you running over the toddler who’s invisible to wing mirrors but standing right behind the car. My friends’ envy meant they’d insist on a rear-view camera when they next bought a car, which might save a life.

In that instance envy served a good purpose.

  • Envy is not inevitable. It’s a choice

Envy feels like it’s a reaction. Your neighbour builds a wonderful extension on their house, or takes their family on the vacation of a lifetime, or gets promotion at their work, or inherits a million from an aunt they never visited. And you react with ‘I want that too’ or ‘I wish that would happen to me’. It’s an instinct, the thought that inevitably comes to mind.

But envy is not inevitable. It happens so quickly and easily it feels automatic. We’ve become used to it, as if coveting what our neighbour has is a preset feature of our humanity.

But it isn’t a preset. Envy is a choice.

Envy is a choice just as greed or lust or anger is a choice. If someone puts a plate of Danish pastries in front of me, must I eat one? Or two? Or three? If I see a beautiful woman, must I imagine having sex with her? If someone is rude and insulting, must I punch them on the nose? We’d say there’s no must about any of these. We might fail, but it was never inevitable we’d fail. Nor is it inevitable we’ll fail with envy.

The hard truth is this: envy is a choice. We are not helpless beings, pushed around by irresistible instincts. We can make decisions, including a decision not to envy what others have.

  • To beat envy, turn the other way

You’ll have heard or read this: Happiness is not having everything you want, but wanting what you have. (It’s a saying attributed to many writers.) It’s rather simplistic. But what it points to is powerful: contentment.

For a time the Apostle Paul was held prisoner in Rome. From his prison he wrote letters, including the one to the church in Philippi. Given his circumstances these words are remarkable:

I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.  (Philippians 4:11-13)

Paul was beaten, thrown out of cities, deserted by friends, suffered poor health and, here, languished in prison. Yet, whatever his circumstances, he was content. But please notice that twice he says he has ‘learned’ to be content.

We’ve all learned things – how to use tools, how to speak a language, how to drive a car, how to grow plants, how to play chess, and many more. We didn’t know automatically how to do these things, but we learned. It took effort, time and commitment, but we got there.

The same is true with contentment. There aren’t ten easy steps to memorise and, suddenly, you’re now perfectly content. It’s choosing to be at peace with what you have, and choosing to resist the urge to chase what you don’t have. I’d never pretend that’s easy, but I know it’s possible.

And here’s an encouraging truth. If two things are in opposite directions, moving towards one takes you further from the other. Contentment and envy lie in opposite directions, so the more we walk towards contentment the further we are from envy. I can’t overcome envy by thinking constantly about things I envy, hoping that one day I’ll wake up not wanting those shiny new things others have. I overcome envy by focusing on the very many thing I have already that bring me contentment. I choose to be content, and let envy perish by neglect.

I urge you to do the same.

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*  The tenth of the Ten Commandments is: ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.’ (Exodus 20:17) 

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, says this: ‘The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.’  (Galatians 5:19-21)

Thomas Aquinas – the 13th century Italian philosopher and theologian – is considered to have defined the standard list of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth.

Shakespeare used the term ‘green-eyed monster’ in Othello, Act 3, Scene 3:

“O beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”

**  No Stupid Questions Ep. 68 https://freakonomics.com/podcast/nsq-envy/

Don’t kill the horse

‘God gave me a horse, and a gift to deliver. Alas, I have killed the horse and can no longer deliver the gift.’

I first read that quote many years ago, and I’ll explain the sad reason behind the statement.

The words are attributed to Robert Murray M’Cheyne, a presbyterian pastor in Dundee from 1836-1843.

M’Cheyne was born in Edinburgh in 1813 and enrolled at the city’s university when he was only 14. A few years later his Christian convictions came alive, and he began studying divinity. As he completed his theological study he wrote this: ‘Life is vanishing fast, make haste for eternity.’

That ‘make haste’ mindset controlled everything M’Cheyne did. Each moment had to be invested in profitable work. Soon he was minister of St Peter’s Church in Dundee. All around he saw people with ‘hardness of heart’ to the Christian gospel. He worked day and night for their lives to change.

After three years of constant work his health was affected. His heart was suffering ‘palpitations’ and quickly they got worse. His friends were concerned; his doctor advised complete rest. Reluctantly he agreed, and returned to the family home in Edinburgh. The following year he was persuaded to join a group of ministers assessing Christian work in Israel; M’Cheyne’s inclusion was partly because the climate would be good for his health. He was gone for six months. During the return journey he became dangerously ill and nearly died. But he recovered and, once stronger, returned to Dundee.

While M’Cheyne had been away, a ‘revival’ had broken out in Scotland including Dundee. When he returned to St Peter’s church, things were very different from when he left. The church was filled. People with a deep concern for ‘eternal realities’ cried out for God’s mercy.

He threw himself into his work with renewed passion. He met with anyone seeking God. He preached in St Peter’s, and in the open air, and at meetings across Scotland, and into England. No-one could have worked harder for his people.

In February 1843, he toured north west Scotland – an area with rugged countryside, high mountains, narrow passes, and almost everywhere exposed to the worst of weather coming off the Atlantic Ocean. M’Cheyne preached 27 times in 24 places, often struggling through heavy snow to his next engagement.

By the time he returned to Dundee he admitted he was desperately tired. But typhus fever had broken out across the city so he visited sick person after sick person, hardly taking rest. Of course he was not immune. His own burning fever began on March 12th, and after a week he became delirious and died on March 25th. M’Cheyne was engaged to be married, and aged just 29.

He died convinced that he’d given his all for God and God’s work, yet sensing that somehow he’d ‘killed the horse’ – his body – which God had given him to deliver the gift of the gospel.

The words spoken by M’Cheyne near to his death have helped me and frightened me. What’s frightened me is the warning that I could bring all I was meant to do with my life to a premature end. What’s helped me is the realisation that life is a marathon, not a sprint, and the goal is to finish, and to finish still strong.

Before explaining more, let me be clear here what I’m not talking about. People have accidents, or become victims, or develop illnesses. Everything is changed through no fault of their own. A soldier loses his legs when a roadside bomb explodes. A young health worker in Asia contracts a disease to which she has no resistance and dies. An aid worker in the Middle East is kidnapped, and though eventually released has ongoing struggles with fear and loss of confidence. A young mum contracts cancer and dies within two years, leaving behind a husband and two very young children.

These are tragedies. These are people whose lives were ended or damaged long before anyone would have expected. They never had the chance to fulfil the potential everyone believed they had. But they didn’t cause the events which happened to them.

Their circumstances are not what this blog is about. I am writing about things we do – things we control – that damage or shorten our futures.

Because these things are numerous and varied I can only give examples.

Sometimes the issue is personal management of our health. I wrote in a recent blog about back problems I’ve had throughout my adult life. (Will life always be this way?, 13.9.21) I asked the specialist I saw in America if my damaged back could be the result of a rugby accident when I was 15. (I was hit in my back by an opponent’s knee as he tackled me.) ‘No,’ he said. ‘The state of your back is not the result of an accident. You were likely born this way.’

So, no-one caused my back pain, but there has always been one person responsible for managing it. I’ve been good about that, but not as good as I should because most of the time I’ve been overweight. Carrying too much weight stresses knees and back. It was easy to find excuses. When you’re a minister you go to meetings at which the host puts out scones and cakes. As an executive leader you go to conferences where they feed you three cooked meals a day. At other times you meet with people in restaurants. While in America, I had days with meetings like that at breakfast, lunch and dinner. One breakfast meeting in a restaurant lasted so long my lunch guest arrived. That was convenient, but did serious damage to the waist line.

Weakness of will meant I often ate the wrong things. Even when I ate the right things, I ate too much. Now that I’m retired, and almost always eating at home, I choose healthy things. Sorry, I should tell the truth – Alison chooses the healthy things. And I’m very grateful she does, as I weigh a lot less now than I did.

That’s my confession – I’ve not always looked after my health. I suspect most people could make a similar confession, though not necessarily about weight. Perhaps smoking? Or drinking more than a little? Or not getting enough sleep? Or anything else that risks shortening our years.

Then there’s the issue of overwork which M’Cheyne likely got wrong. I’ve seen employment adverts which virtually spell out that they want an employee who’ll give 110 per cent, surrendering heart and soul to the company. These are invitations to abandon health, family life, friendships, recreation, for the greater profit of a business. That deal is never worth taking.

Yet many do sign up, and they go along with a culture which demands that you start early and finish late, that you don’t take most of your vacation time, and that you answer your phone or emails any time of night and day. Often the wages are good, but you pay a heavy price to get that income. Marriages break up. Children become strangers. Health breaks down. And nothing lives in your mind except work.

Work is good and honourable. But overwork kills the spirit and the body.

For some, career and much more is shortened by serious loss of reputation. It happens when someone fakes their curriculum vitae to get a top job. Or when they’re found to have given bribes to win a contract. Or they lied in court. Or they falsified accounts to make the business look more profitable. These things have significant legal consequences, but even if the legalities are escaped the actions are usually career-ending.

Sometimes the failure isn’t legal but moral. I worked beside a journalist who’d had an affair with the wife of a very prominent civic officer. The relationship ended when it became public. The wife’s marriage was damaged, and so was the journalist’s career because he had to move far away to find another job. Tragically, church ministers can fail morally in similar ways. The vast majority would be ashamed of their actions, but they were weak when they should have been strong. It’s not always ‘career’ ending – there can be restoration – but the damage done is never small.

There have always been addictions, and they have dreadful consequences. Addiction to alcohol is mostly obvious. The same can be true with drugs sold on street corners. But addictions to prescription medications are often secret. And often deadly.

This information on deaths from drug poisoning in England and Wales comes from the British government’s Office for National Statistics

Almost half of all drug poisonings continue to involve an opiate. For deaths registered in 2020, a total of 2,263 drug poisoning deaths involved opiates; this was 4.8% higher than in 2019 (2,160 deaths) and 48.2% higher than in 2010 (1,527 deaths). Opiates were involved in just under half (49.6%) of drug poisonings registered in 2020, increasing to 64.5% when we exclude deaths that had no drug type recorded on the death certificate.*

It shocks me that opiates cause almost half of drug deaths, and the number has grown by almost 50 per cent over ten years. Often few knew someone was addicted until they overdosed and died.

There are other kinds of addictions too, such as gambling and pornography. Increasingly, worries are expressed that computer gaming has become compulsive, and not just for children. Perhaps TV soap operas are also addictive. I knew someone who recorded two or three every evening, and sat up late watching them.

I find much to admire in the life of Robert Murray M’Cheyne. And I never learned how to limit my commitment to caring for people’s bodies and souls. The sacrifice always felt worth it.

But there’s also much to learn from M’Cheyne. His words about ‘killing the horse’ and so ‘can no longer deliver the gift’ are sobering. Would he have wanted to have lived and ministered for longer? I feel sure he would.

There is a challenge, then, in his words. We make choices, and what stops us fulfilling our potential will be a bad choice.

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* Extract taken from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2020

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Right doesn’t cancel wrong

It’s April, 1912, and in the boiler and engine rooms of the Titanic, firemen, mechanics and engineers are working flat out. The captain has ordered a near maximum speed of 22 knots. Sustaining that speed is back breaking work for those who stoke the boilers and keep the thundering machinery running. But they get it right; nothing goes wrong with those engines.

But something does go wrong, just not in the engine room. The lookouts in the crow’s nest don’t have binoculars – they were borrowed and not returned. So the men on watch gaze as best they can into still night air. The lack of airflow is a dangerous problem. Wind-driven icebergs disturb water. Stationary icebergs are hard to see. Suddenly, dead ahead, there’s an iceberg. They sound the alarm, the ship alters course, but too late to avoid a sideswipe against the ice. The hull is breached and water floods several compartments and spreads. Less than three hours later, the supposedly unsinkable Titanic disappears beneath the water taking some 1500 people with it.

Six hundred and eighty eight of those who died were crew; that’s 76 per cent of those who began the voyage. Many were firemen, mechanics and engineers. They’d done their jobs. Those engines raced the Titanic forward. But what was done right didn’t make up for what was done wrong. Almost certainly many things were wrong. For more than a hundred years people have questioned why the vessel was among icebergs, why warnings of icebergs weren’t heeded, whether it should have been going so fast, whether the iceberg should have been seen earlier, and much more. The Titanic was luxurious in appearance and sailed magnificently, but none of that counted when it hit the iceberg and became one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters ever.

Here’s the lesson from this. Getting one thing right doesn’t compensate for getting other things wrong. The below deck crew made the Titanic’s engines run as smoothly and sweetly as possible, powering it through the water. That was good. But it didn’t make up for sailing at speed into water strewn with icebergs.

We comfort ourselves that what we’re getting right compensates for things we’re getting wrong.

It doesn’t and here’s another example.

I was in a restaurant, and noticed that a large pizza was placed in front of a nearby customer. He was far from a small man. I couldn’t help but think he must have eaten a lot of large pizzas before.

What intrigued me wasn’t that the customer was about to eat a pizza which could have fed a family, but his chosen beverage. He was drinking a can of Diet Coke. Normally I’d think well of someone avoiding the approximately 140 calories in a regular cola. Except the pizza he was tucking into had about 2200 calories. Since the recommended calorie intake for men is 2500 calories per day, that customer was getting 88 per cent of his day’s allowance from that one pizza. I thought: ‘What’s the point of a diet drink when its benefit is well and truly erased by your giant pizza’.

One thing right (the diet cola) couldn’t cancel what was wrong (his massive pizza).

How can we pretend that doing one thing right negates one or more things which are wrong? But sometimes we do think like that.

I’ll list three reasons for that idea, and why those reasons are invalid.

We think what’s good compensates for what’s bad, because it comforts us to think that way.   When I was about 15, I was in the top performing class of pupils my age, but I scored near to the bottom of that top group. Almost everyone in the class did better than me. For example, I sat five national exams in that school year. Here were my results:

English – passed.

History – passed.

Maths – failed.

Arithmetic – failed.*

French – failed.

German – so poor I wasn’t allowed to take the exam.

That performance was not good, not at all good. But I wasn’t too disappointed. After all I’d passed in two subjects, those I was actually interested in. So that was okay.

It wasn’t okay. Passing two, failing three, banned from taking another – that’s never okay. Through many of my school years, my teachers’ verdict was consistently ‘Could do better’. I simply didn’t put any effort into studying subjects that I didn’t enjoy. If I had I’d have passed.** I might never have been top in my class, but I didn’t need to be at the bottom.

Instead I underperformed but comforted myself I’d passed something. That was an excuse. I could and should have passed them all. I was indulging in false comfort.

We think what’s good compensates for what’s bad, because at least we’re doing something.    The guy who ordered Diet Coke was at least doing something towards weight loss. I have my own versions of that mindset. If I’ve started pulling weeds out in the garden, I’ve done something towards getting it under control. If I’ve started on my next study assignment, I’ve done something towards completing it. Both of those are good. I’m on my way. It’s an achievement.

Starting is an achievement. But it’s not success if that’s when we also stop. Drinking Diet Coke won’t get restaurant man to his right weight unless he cuts back on pizza eating. Pulling out a few weeds won’t get my garden in order when more weeds are springing up at great speed in every other part of the garden. Writing a couple of paragraphs of a study assignment is not great progress if the deadline for the 2000 or 3000 word assignment is just days away.

We feel better once we’ve done a little. But doing a little can become a substitute for not doing everything we should.

We think what’s good compensates for what’s bad, because we reckon good things outweigh bad things.    If everything was weighed, surely the good we do would tip the scales the right way. ‘Today I phoned a friend going through a hard time. I bought coffee for a colleague. I complimented someone on their work. And I washed the car. Yes, I know I cheated on my expenses, told a neighbour I wished he lived somewhere else, and murdered my boss because he was getting on my nerves. But there was more good than bad in my day, so that’s okay.’

That list of a day’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is, of course, ludicrous, but I’ve exaggerated it to make two points.

First, good and bad things don’t carry the same ‘weight’, any more than ten light parcels weigh the same as ten heavy parcels. You can’t compare buying coffee for a colleague with murdering the boss!

Second, the bad things shouldn’t exist at all. If you had a thousand good deeds in your day, they still wouldn’t compensate for theft or murder. Doing something right doesn’t cancel doing something wrong. The wrong should never happen.

So, if we can’t take comfort in having some good in our lives, while ignoring the bad, what do we need to do?

The short answer is living with no half measures and no excuses.

No half measures because often something isn’t better than nothing. When I play golf, I may reach a hole where there’s nothing between the tee ground and the green except water. If I want to get my ball on the green, I’ll have to hit it 150 yards through the air. Hitting it 80 yards isn’t enough. Nor is 120 yards or 140 yards. These are all ‘something’ but they’re not enough. My ball will land in the pond unless I hit it more than 150 yards.

Likewise, the fact that the Titanic’s engines were first rate and running flat out was ‘something’, but it wasn’t enough when the ship sailed straight for an iceberg.

None of us are perfect, and we’ll often fall short. But when we accept ‘short’ as enough we’re in trouble.

No excuses when we’ve simply not given our best. I left school with the worst exam results for anyone in the ‘A’ stream of pupils. I wasn’t much interested in some of the subjects, and I didn’t relate well to those who taught them. But those were excuses, and don’t come close to justifying my lack of effort. I could have done much better, and even if I had a hundred excuses I’d still be guilty.

It’s been many years since I stopped thinking that getting a few things right compensated for getting so much else wrong. Here, in closing, is the image of how I’d like my life to be.

Picture an athlete – a sprinter – giving everything to finish their race well. Eyes focused on the line, arms and legs pumping, chest pushed out to breast the tape. Long before that moment, they’d ironed out the flaws in their technique and mindset, and trained their body to run the distance at full speed. They prepared and on the day they performed. Everything was honed to be the best it could be, and they gave it. There were no half measures and afterwards no excuses.

That’s my ideal of how my life should have been lived. I’ve never wholly succeeded, but I’ll always try.

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*  At that time Scottish schools separated arithmetic from maths, hence separate exams.

**  A year later I was more motivated and did pass the maths exam, and when I was 20 (and wanting admission to university) passed ‘Higher’ exams in French, Geography and Accounting. Some years further on I studied for a PhD degree, and read German text books and included passages in German in my thesis. Perhaps I was a ‘late bloomer’.

You don’t know how much good you’re doing

‘You don’t know me,’ she began, ‘but my name’s Sandra and you changed my life!’

That’s not how most conversations began after I’d preached. I’d spoken to nearly 3000 at Spring Harvest, a very large Christian gathering, and afterwards several had taken their turn to thank me. I’d noticed a young lady standing off to one side, waiting until I was clear of the queue.

Sandra had stunned me with her opening sentence. ‘I need to hear how I could possibly have changed your life!’ I told her.

I listened to her story. In her late teens she’d sunk into a deep depression. Neither counselling nor medication had lifted her from a very dark place, and she’d become suicidal. Fearing for her life, doctors had committed her to a psychiatric hospital. Family and friends had visited, and her care was excellent, but nothing improved her mental health over the next two years.

Then a friend brought her a tape to listen to. ‘It was a tape of you preaching at a large gathering,’ she told me.

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘What was I talking about?’

‘You spoke about us being engraved on the palms of God’s hands, and you said that to God we are unforgettable.’

I remembered that address. I’d been asked to preach at the communion service of a national assembly, and had based my talk on verses from Isaiah chapter 49 which include these words from God: ‘See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands’ (v. 16). I’d described running my hand over an engraved bowl, feeling how the words were cut right into the glass. Engraving was deep and permanent – it was unforgettable. And the image of us being engraved on God’s hands carried the message: we are unforgettable to him.

Sandra continued: ‘I believed my life was meaningless and insignificant. I didn’t matter – I was completely forgettable. I listened to what you said, played the tape again, and then again and again. And I began to believe what you said. God had not forgotten me.’

That was the turning point in her life. She took positive steps to improve her health and, with support from family, she was released from hospital. She found work, and she found faith. And that faith had brought her to Spring Harvest where I happened to be one of the main speakers.

Until then I hadn’t known there was anything special about that ‘engraved on the palms of God’s hands’ message. It had been appreciated by those present, but that was all. Except, it wasn’t all. Someone locked in a psychiatric ward got to hear it, and her life began to change.

It happened that I met Sandra and heard her story, but I might never have done.

I suspect that often we never get to know how much good our words and actions have done. It’s hard to know exactly how often that happens, because we can’t count what we don’t know!

I’ll describe some instances of significant things I might easily never have known about. I apologise that they’re all my stories, but, of course, how could others tell me stories of things they probably know nothing about?

Here are six instances when someone didn’t realise the significance of what they said or did.

One  As a young journalist I shared a room with two others at a residential conference. As we settled down to sleep, there was a short conversation about whether we believed in God. I said I did, to which John, one of my companions, responded: ‘I respect you believing in God, but what I can’t respect is that you don’t then do anything about it.’ (Described more fully in my earlier blog ‘Serious business’ 20.2.21) Those words hit me hard. He was right. It was nonsense that I believed God was real but didn’t do anything about it. John’s statement pushed me into a much deeper search for faith. John never knew his words had that effect.

Two  A few weeks after John’s tough words, I sat with other young adults asking questions about Christianity. All sorts of issues got raised. Should Christians be pacifists? Must a Christian marry only another Christian? Aren’t churches out of touch with society? Then Irene asked: ‘What do Christians mean when they say Christ died for them?’ It was Irene’s question, but also mine, except until that moment I hadn’t known it. What Christians meant when they said Christ died for them was exactly what I needed to understand. Just over 24 hours later, late into the night, I found the answer and gave my life to Christ. From that moment everything about my future changed. Later, Irene and I often talked about faith but she never knew how significant her question had been for me.

Three  In the run-up to Christmas, BMS World Mission sent hundreds of cards to supporters. I signed all of them personally because I wanted people to know how much we valued them. I never expected I’d get a reply. But I did. Every year a few would write: ‘I live alone, hardly see anyone, and yours is the only Christmas card I’ve received. I’m so grateful you thought of me.’ I’d never imagined our Christmas card would mean so much and nearly never knew it did.

Four  Probably all preachers know that some of their sermons die in mid air. The words never reach the congregation. The people show no signs of response. Twice – in two different churches – it was on the tip of my tongue to say: ‘I’m stopping now – this sermon is not helping – let’s just move to the closing hymn’. But I slogged on. The outcome was not what I expected. On both occasions, far more than usual thanked me for the sermon, and made it clear their words weren’t just politeness; they really were grateful. I could not escape the conclusion that message had done good. It had felt dreadful but only for the preacher, not for the congregation.

Five  Every sermon can’t be a ‘fireworks’ show, and my sermon didn’t feel bad, just ordinary. It was just a straightforward message about the Holy Spirit. I reached the end. Stopped. Normally people stir, but this time they were oddly quiet. Then Don stood. He’d been a Christian for only a year and was a quiet kind of man. He looked around at the others who were present, and said, ‘Alistair, on behalf of all of us, thank you for that message. It was so clear, so encouraging and so helpful’. People around him nodded their agreement. I wanted to say ‘Really?’ Instead I had the grace and good sense to thank him for his kind words. And when the service was over I went away once again amazed at how ignorant I’d been about the effect of my sermon.

These are all positive stories, but I must include one which is unfortunately negative.

Six  It was another major conference address, this one unhelpful for one person. (Included also in blog ‘Why quit while you’re ahead? 10.7.21) During my talk I described how one of my daughters nearly drowned when caught in a fast current. If someone hadn’t spotted her, she’d have been lost. Afterwards a lady came to me. She was angry and distraught. Why? Because her son had been murdered by drowning, and what I had described about my daughter had stirred her grief enormously. Part of me thought ‘I couldn’t have known that’ but I apologised profusely for upsetting her and promised to think more carefully about stories I included in my talks. She accepted my words, but was still distressed when she left.

Truly, we don’t know the effect of our words, or, if we do, only later.

I’ve reached these conclusions.

We are not the best judges of ourselves.    We may think we’re acting rightly, or speaking profoundly, but the real judge is the person on the receiving end. And their reaction may be very different to what we expect. Our words may be ordinary but hugely significant in the life of a person facing special circumstances. Or the finest oratory, or most generous of actions, may mean nothing to them because of problems they’re facing. Our skills and abilities are not what determine the responses of those around us. Often their responses are far better than our efforts deserve. We just don’t know what effect our words or actions will have.

We’re not in control of what’s significant for someone.    As I’ve greeted those leaving church after the service, I’ve been told, ‘Thank you, Alistair. That was such a special service for me.’ So I’ve asked what part of the sermon meant so much to them. ‘No, not the sermon,’ they’ve replied. ‘It was the phrase you used near the beginning that it’s good for us all to be together. That’s such an important thing and I’m glad you reminded me.’ I nod positively, but inside I’m thinking ‘I slaved for hours preparing my sermon, but what meant so much was an unscripted, unrehearsed phrase. Frustrating!’ It is frustrating, but actually rather wonderful. Someone was helped and encouraged; that’s the only thing that matters.

If you want to know how much you’re appreciated, leave.    That’s been my not-too-serious advice to pastors and other leaders. Farewell gatherings are full of speeches expressing gratitude for the many wonderful things done by the departing colleague, and how much they meant as a friend and fellow-worker. Mostly those statements are true, but they’d never have known if they hadn’t been leaving.

We need reasonable caution about what we say.    I learned that from the lady I upset with one story in my address. It was an innocent mistake, but in the future I did my best to imagine how listeners might react to illustrations used in my talks. We can’t shy away from recounting real life experiences, but can take sensible steps to minimise any upset.

If someone doesn’t know what they should know, tell them.    At some funerals, an opportunity is given to share a good memory about the deceased person. I’ve listened as story after story was told of the good effect that person had on people’s lives, and wondered, ‘Did they ever know this?’ Probably they didn’t. When my dad was in his mid-70s I wrote him a letter thanking him for being a great father to me. From my youngest I’d known he loved me, supported me, believed in me, and taken delight in my achievements. I was privileged. So I wrote down what all that had meant for me, and thanked him from the bottom of my heart, then sealed the letter and posted it. Several days later I saw Dad. He wasn’t a man who talked about feelings, but he thanked me for the letter and then said it was the best letter he’d ever received in his whole life. He died just a few years later. I was glad I’d been able to tell him before then how much he’d meant in my life.

The overall message of this blog is simply its title: you don’t know how much good you’re doing. You really are doing good. Shyness or circumstances may have stopped people telling you. But, I promise, if you act kindly and speak wisely people are being helped. Sometimes you’ve simply encouraged them along life’s way. And sometimes what you’ve said or done was life-changing for them. Take that to heart. It’s true. It’s remarkable. It’s something worth knowing. You should feel good about it.

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Perhaps the next thing you should do is tell someone what they’ve meant in your life. But another thing – if this blog has been helpful – is to share it with others. Use the ‘Share’ button, or point them to www.occasionallywise.com. That might be life-changing for them!

Will life always be this way?

A central character in Ken Follett’s novel ‘The Eye of the Needle’ is hurt and weak, but rouses himself with this thought: ‘It was important not to permit oneself the psychological attitudes of the invalid’.

I read that sentence twice. And then a third time. It meant something to me personally.

I suspect all Follett had in mind was that the injured character galvanised himself into readiness to fight. He wasn’t thinking that all ‘invalids’ have the same psychological attitudes.

But what he wrote took me back to a critical moment in my mid-thirties.

I’ll begin my story when I was 18. I was a trainee journalist working in Edinburgh, when one day I felt back pain and by the next day could hardly move. My doctor prescribed pain killers and bed rest. Two days later my parents arrived to persuade me that I couldn’t just lie in my one room bed-sitter, unable to shop or prepare meals, and they’d take me home with them.  I agreed, but I might not if I’d realised their plan was that my bed would have a wooden board over the mattress. Back then, that was the accepted wisdom for people with bad backs. Drugged and desperate I lay on that board, but it made my pain much worse. Eventually they had mercy and removed the board, and slowly I got better.

That was only the beginning. I had similar struggles through my twenties. Some chronic pain was always there, then every few years it would become severe and everything would stop for a few weeks. Mostly I kept going through university studies and church ministry, and even played scrum half in my college’s rugby team.

Then came my mid-thirties. By then I had been a full-time pastor for some years, and Alison and I had four young children. We’d had a wonderful experience planting a new church in Livingston, not far from Edinburgh. Now I’d been called to become pastor in the north east Scotland city of Aberdeen. Getting ready for that change involved long journeys, extra meetings, and final get-togethers. Life was busier than I ever imagined it could be.

A week before our move my back gave in. The pain was immense. Any movement was agony. It didn’t matter if I stood, sat or lay down; every position was bad. My doctor prescribed strong medication which dulled all my senses. Friends gave up their bedroom for me. Not just to let me lie there day and night, but so Alison with her friend Kathy could pack up the home we were leaving. One evening I was eased into our car, the seat reclined, and with kids in the back Alison drove us 130 miles to Aberdeen. There I lay on a thin mattress on the floor. Somehow I managed to attend the service where I was inducted as minister of the church, and even preached. Then I went home, and lay again on the floor. A few days later the top orthopaedic surgeon from the hospital arrived to examine me, and promptly admitted me to hospital. I was put on traction, and for two weeks I just lay there.

Then, with pain slightly eased, I was sent home and my back slowly improved. About two months later than scheduled I began my ministry properly at the Aberdeen church. Good things happened during the following weeks. But my back was not stable. Pain worsened, and again I was taken into hospital. This time they carried out a diagnostic imaging test – a myelogram – which involved a contrast dye injected into my spinal column. That allowed the medics a much clearer view of what was happening around my spinal canal than standard X-rays could give. But my body reacted negatively to the dye, causing more pain and keeping me in hospital for another two weeks. During that time I was measured and fitted for an upper body harness – metal bars sheathed in leather with tight straps to hold my body in the right posture. The idea, I was told, was that I’d be unable to move in unhelpful ways, and thus let my back heal. I felt almost unable to move in any way, except by making penguin-like rigid motions. But at least I could go home.

That was two days before I was to conduct a wedding. The couple had sat by my hospital bed while I prepared them for the service. On the wedding day I unbuckled and removed my harness almost as the wedding march was being played, and put it back on as soon as the service was over.

Over the following months and for a couple of years I was better. Life was good. The ministry was being appreciated.

But the debilitating pain was just hiding. It returned with a vengeance. This time I met with a neurosurgeon who recommended an intriguing operation called, I believe, ‘Chemonucleolysis of Lumbar Disc Herniation’. An enzyme would be injected into my bulging disc which would dissolve disc material and thus release pressure on the spinal nerve. Only a needle would be used, no scalpels. It all sounded good. I went into hospital the day before the operation. The neurosurgeon came to explain that my body would never have encountered the enzyme before, so its reaction couldn’t be exactly known. My body could go into shock which, in rare cases, would be fatal. That wasn’t comforting. Before the operation a small access port was inserted into my arm, ‘in case we have to give you urgent treatment later’. I knew what that meant. The procedure was done while I was conscious but face down on a special operating table. When they were finished no-one moved. I had to lie still, and the medical team stood around me for ten minutes. No-one said they were waiting to see if I would die, but I suspect they were.

Did it work? For about six to nine months I did feel better. But not significantly after that. I found out that they stopped performing the operation two years later, perhaps because of risks associated with it, but mainly because the long-term results weren’t great. Which, unfortunately, was my experience.

Something like normal life kept happening around these hospital stays and operations. Congregation numbers grew so much we had to move to a larger building. Our children were growing up. Alison began studies towards a health science degree.

What I didn’t care for was that I’d become known as the pastor who began his ministry in Aberdeen as a hospital patient. Whenever I met people they asked ‘How’s your back these days?’ I appreciated their concern but wished for anything else as the opening line of conversation.

Then a deeply unwelcome possibility intensified in my mind. ‘Here I am, aged in my late thirties, constantly immobilised by back problems. Doctors and well-wishers can do no more than urge me to protect myself. Maybe this is how life is always going to be.’

That last thought – that this might be how my life is always going to be – was deeply distressing. I’d always believed I’d get better. Perhaps my back pain would simply go away. If not, then surely there was some more or less invasive treatment that would cure it. No other kind of illness in my life had been permanent. I always got well. And I’d assumed that would happen with my back pain. I wasn’t yet 40-years-old. Life couldn’t always be like this.

But it could. Well-meaning friends and medical professionals (surgeons, general practitioners, physiotherapists) were telling me to manage my back carefully. They were urging a defensive strategy – a ‘do no harm to yourself’ way of living. I mustn’t exhaust myself, or work too hard, or sit too long at my desk or in meetings, or lift anything heavy, or drive long distances. I should always insist on comfortable seating, and avoid strenuous sports or hobbies. While never having to dig the garden sounded good, the implications of the rest were dire. But perhaps it had to happen. I’d have to accept my life ahead would be significantly limited.

I can’t explain why, but I woke up one day knowing I wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t be that person if there was any option not to be that person. There were still many directions in which my life could go. Was I supposed to delete half the options, leaving only what was ‘safe’ and undemanding? Were outdoor sports like hill climbing and golf – good not just for my physical health but also my mental health – just to be abandoned? Would I never throw a frisbee or play tennis with my children? Would I not lift them up and hug them? Would I consign Alison to carry all the shopping, or take luggage out of the car, or move  the furniture around? I wouldn’t. That day I decided that as long as possible and as much as possible, I’d live life to the full.

And, as best I can, I’ve done that. As a family we’ve climbed Ben Nevis and Snowdon, the highest mountains in Britain. I became a single-figure handicap golfer. I’ve travelled and preached from the Shetland Islands (110 miles north of the Scottish mainland) to churches along the south coast of England. I’ve been in dozens of countries including Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Congo, Angola, Uganda, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, North Korea and Indonesia. I wasn’t supposed to take long plane rides. I wasn’t supposed to journey over arduous terrain. I wasn’t supposed to hike up steep mountains, sleep in rough quarters in remote and dangerous places, and sit on the floor of jungle huts listening to stories of persecution and hardship. But I have done these things, and consider each one an immense privilege. I’ve tried to be a help and a blessing to those I’ve met, but have received back twofold anything I was able to give.

None of that would have happened if – using Follett’s line – I’d permitted myself the psychological attitudes of the invalid. If I’d settled for a highly protected, uneventful life, everything would have been different.

So, has the pain gone away over those years? No, not at all. It’s still the same pattern, manageable most of the time but then critical for periods of several weeks.

But now I do have a better understanding of why it happens.

One of the very painful phases occurred while we lived in America. My doctor prescribed powerful painkillers and directed me towards one of the most eminent orthopaedic surgeons in the Chicago area. He and I met, and before deciding on a course of treatment he sent me for MRI scans. Afterwards I consulted with him again. He put the images on screen and began: ‘Have you spent your whole working life doing manual labour?’ I laughed, and explained I hadn’t spent any of it doing manual labour. He apologised, but said, ‘When we see a back like this, it’s almost always someone whose life has involved heavy physical work over many years.’ He took me through the images and pointed out three herniated discs (commonly called slipped discs). Their pressure on spinal nerves would cause severe pain. And that wasn’t all. He added: ‘You can’t have a back like this and not have arthritis throughout’. I waited for some good news, perhaps a surgical option that would put me right. But there wasn’t one because, he said, no operation would give meaningful benefit. All he could do was recommend physiotherapy and a sensible use of pain medication.

Everything that doctor told me had been true about my back throughout my adult life. No accident had caused it, he said. It was just how my back was. And, in a sense, I’m okay with that. I’d never before really understood why I had ongoing chronic pain with bouts of acute pain. The new knowledge was helpful, and I’d continue to be positive and do everything I should and could.

Is that realistic for everyone? After all, what does a ‘positive approach’ mean for someone severely disabled, such as a soldier who’s lost his legs? That’s a very different situation to mine. I could live life close to what would be normal for someone without a wrecked back. The person who’s lost both legs has much greater challenges to overcome. But that doesn’t mean life must then be lived under a permanent shadow.  Good and positive things can still be done.

As a child I read and re-read the story of Douglas Bader. He’d become an RAF pilot but crashed doing aerobatics, almost died, and had both his legs amputated. He fought hard to regain his strength and with artificial legs regained his flying qualifications. But the RAF forced him to retire on medical grounds. Then World War II began. Experienced fighter pilots were in short supply so even Bader with his tin legs was accepted. He won air battles above the Dunkirk beaches and in the Battle of Britain. In 1941 he was shot down over German-occupied France, and made a POW. Several times he escaped but was recaptured and eventually sent to Colditz Castle. After the war he held senior posts in the oil industry, played golf to a high standard, and was awarded a knighthood by the Queen.

Very few can be like Bader. A biography was written about him, followed by the film Reach for the Sky. Why? Because his story is exceptional. But his positive approach to life doesn’t have to be exceptional.

Every blog piece I write is intended to have at least a little wisdom. What’s the wisdom here?

I hope it’s this. I don’t actually like Follett’s reference to ‘the psychological attitudes of the invalid’. It’s far too sweeping. But I came close to permitting myself to think all ambitions had to go, that I could do nothing of significance, and life would have to be lived defensively and dependent on others. If I’d surrendered to those ‘psychological attitudes’ then, in some sense, I would have become an invalid.

That surrender doesn’t have to happen. There is another way of living. I know people who’ve done great things despite great challenges, and I’m privileged that some of them are my friends.

If, in any way, this account of my health journey helps you lift your eyes to better horizons, to greater possibilities, then there will have been wisdom here after all.

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