Euangelion

The season of good cheer is certainly close at hand, but almost like a hand in a glove to protect against a chilling wind, so is the season of the winter blues. Unfortunately in our home, entwined within the Christmas preparations, is the spectre of depression, with its good friend’s anxiety and fear. There are almost as many people who would shout ‘Bah-Humbug’ to the festivities as there are those who will whoop and cheer at the prospect of another party.

I have always been assured of my faith in God; assured of who I am as a child of God and the hope that Jesus offers. With a Godly hope, we can accomplish all things. Without his presence in my life, I certainly wouldn’t have gone to university and had the career I have enjoyed. His assurance allowed me to be confident in whom I was, not simply for what I thought I knew to be true but because of who he was. God created the universe… If I couldn’t trust that he has me in his hands, moulds me like clay and equips me with grace and mercy, then there wouldn’t be much to show for my faith.

Patience, endurance and resilience are the qualities that I believe that God gave me when I became a Christian at 12 years of age He knew I would need these gifts throughout my life. I know this because it is not my natural state to be confident or ambitious. However, through working hard, I have endured when all of my detractors might have said otherwise. There are many scriptures that I have held dear to me over the years, helping me through the trials I have faced. It is always easier to look at others and compare yourself to them, but this is not a particularly healthy position to be in. Thinking of ourselves as second best is never a good base-line for building our fragile psychologies upon, particularly with regard to self-esteem.

Maintaining a focus on God and his son Jesus and the experience of the Holy Spirits counsel, is a very complete picture of a way to maintaining a positive attitude towards our interactions with those around us. Of course, we do things in our own strength and plan our lives with little regard to the Holy Spirits guidance, perhaps using a form of religious legalism to maintain our own sense of a healthy spiritual life, but it may not necessarily be spirit filled. We read a bit of Bible, do a bit of worship by singing along to the CD or MP3 in the car, while offering up the occasional prayer for a parking space. We generally bumble along until something within our countenance begins to malfunction.

It starts with a sense of dissatisfaction; the things that we do to maintain our happy demeanour suddenly seem to lack the fulfilment we once knew. The dissatisfaction leads to a disappointment with the beliefs we once held and we start to question all of the decisions we have ever taken, looking for excuses for why we feel the way that we do. The Christmas office party romance; over indulgent eating; the endorphin rush of exercise; fixation with any number of objects; abuse of substances harmful to health; chasing after material possessions; artificial highs… We can try out every experience known to our civilisation before perhaps realising that our discontent is much deeper than the superficial search for happiness.

It’s the not knowing: Is this all that there is?

 

Is there any deeper meaning to my purpose in this world? Humanists would accept the answers to these two questions as YES and NO.  Life is for the living and you must ensure that you live it to the full without any obligations to any higher being or deity. The Naturalists would argue that we are the sum total of millennia of evolution and that this is as good as it gets. Yet why do many of us slip into bouts of restlessness?

There are many in society who have a bigger perspective than themselves. These people see the need within their communities for taking direct action, making a cognitive decision to make a difference. These altruistic acts of kindness make our communities function more effectively. These selfless acts seem to counteract the harm done by those who are always taking too much out of the world we live in. Some might argue that this is a type of Karma; that each action has consequences which have a direct impact on those around us. This holistic outlook on life, transcends our understanding of what it is to be human and can lead to us questioning whether there may be more to life than we currently experience.

It is interesting that Christmas represents a period of time where our communities do think of others rather than just ourselves… it is better to give than to receive it is said. However well-meaning and inspired these acts of kindness and generosity are, it is all too easy today to ignore the plight of others, particularly when we feel that it is happening to somebody else and in someplace else. Social welfare fills in the gap that society is ambivalent of but even here in the UK, during a period of recession and austerity, we seem to want to look for ways to de-select those in government who make decisions against those that the popular vote deem worthy of such support.

There is an old Del Amitri song that goes like this: ‘Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all. The needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before. Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all. They’ll burn down the synagogue at six o’clock, and we’ll all go along like before. And we’ll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow.’ The sentiment running through the song is in the sense of fruitlessness to the routine of life. Yes we all go around with a sense of purpose, doing our work and living a life that we may have actively chosen, or one that has been derived from necessity. At the end of the day, no matter how busy we may have been, we can still feel lonely or isolated when we contemplate our place within the big-picture.

Despite my comments regarding the assurance that I believe that God has gifted to me and the fruitlessness of looking for esteem from others, I have always struggled with my understanding of how well I am acceptance by my peers. I look to my contemporaries for status and fellowship and can feel insecure when I feel cold shouldered when no offence was intended. I seem to be susceptible to the subtleties of body language when I perceive that something is not quite right with my relationships with people and always assume the worst. In reality, this interaction with my peers is no more or less than usual and is simply the journey of life which unfortunately leaves me exposed to my inner fears.

I can also feel jealous of the relationships that my friends have with other people because of these fears. It’s as though I think that the relationships I make with others are mutually exclusive; how dare they go and befriend those other people without including me in that. Similarly, if I don’t connect with people for a while, I can begin to believe my own fears about being an unworthy person to be around and see conspiracy when there is none. Thoughts such as, ‘Are they talking about me?’ and ‘Well so and so is more charismatic than I am so they are bound to hit-it-off at the expense of my relationship with them’, pass through my mind because I believe I am unworthy of their friendship. It all probably sounds emotionally immature… ‘How can he write about God loving all of us despite our faults and yet not be able to resolve this conflict?’

In psychological terms, it is called fight or flight. I would always choose to back away from perceptions of conflict in order to protect my fragile ego, rather than confront any issue’s I might have with a situation or set of circumstances. I am confident when talking about what I know to be true and when using logical argument to determine a way forward when faced with difficult issues. However, when it comes to dealing with issues surrounding the perceptions I think that people have of my conduct, I am ill-equipped. Hence my propensity to view what I perceive to be negative forms of body language, as a sign that I am not worthy of socially interacting with the people that I have made connections with in my social and professional life.

So where next? I am not one to fill my life with melancholy so I use my reassurance in God to press-on and hope it will all come right in the end. I trust him to bring all things together for good, even if I cannot. This might sound like avoidance to some but I am not of the opinion that counselling leads to the fulfilment of all of our psychological hiccups. It does help to use counselling to rationally explore our psyche in order to understand how we think; to learn why we react in certain ways and why we perpetually carry around with us, a mix of emotions that are often conflicted. It is our ability to transcend the biological mass of our bodies and the symphony of our brain chemistry, to pursue new expressions of civility and grace that makes us human. How much more then, if we rely on the one who created the universe and humanity within it, for our guidance? For the things that I cannot control, I know that God can – that is why I believe.

God is bigger and more capable of leading me forward in the life that he has set out for me than I could ever manage. I prayerfully accept his will for my life even if at times I try to grab it back and neglect my obligations. I am always reminded in the Gospel narrative of the way that Jesus ‘looked’ at those he was addressing, particularly those who were afflicted with sin. The compassion that you can sense within the different storylines that his body language and his gaze exhibited one of understanding and love. The most complete picture of what I mean is found in the story of Peter at the trial of Jesus in the courtyard of the High Priest Caiaphas. Jesus foretells the regard that Peter has for him in relation to his own life through the rejection of his association with Jesus three times before their eye’s lock in the courtyard in recognition that what Jesus had said, had come to pass.

God knows what we will do and what we are like, before we realise it ourselves. He can see all of the possibilities that our lives have access to but we chose the path we want to walk along. There are times when we are in complete synergy with the Holy Spirit and we walk freely in the Fathers will. There are also times when we deviate from the path set before us and come across unsuspected obstacles that God can work through in order for us to realise that we have moved away from God’s intended plan for our lives and we rejoice in the security of returning to the Fathers welcoming arms as the lost prodigal.

These obstacles may be natural things such as an illness or unexpected accidents but others originate from within our decision making and the ‘fall-out’ of the decisions we make. Some of our choices have life-changing circumstances, while others are just that niggle in the back of our sub-conscious thinking, that prickle’s our conscious thinking from time to time. I get these types of memory flashback when I have unresolved issues in my life or when I remember those nauseating errors we make from time to time.

Either event provides opportunities for God to reveal his sovereign will for our lives over our own will for our life. There is often a gap between the two which God describes as sin. However open or secret the sin we are trying to stage-manage is, we are really struggling with two worlds: That of God’s kingdom breaking into our hearts, and that of the world of man that is seeded in each of our hearts and has deep roots. Like all weeds, it is always important to dig out the whole root or the weed is sure to return in the next season.

This is the folly of man that we think that we can resolve these issues with a generous dollop of good reasoning and time. However, what happens in reality is that we carry around with us, a large amount of secret pain that pollutes our core nature. The enemy, who in the spirit of Harry Potter, shall not be named, is like a prowling lion, seeking to devour any who want to raise their head above the trenches. He will try any trick possible to maintain our status quo and disable our potential for good in this world.

There are many self-help techniques from simple affirmation statements to Cognitive Behavioural Therapies that help us manage these fears. For many, medication is the only possible course of action for those with such deep emotions that rational thinking is indeed unthinkable. Our bodies and minds can react unpredictably when presented with an overload of emotion combined with the insecurity of who we really are deep down. Supressed emotions that we can no longer contain, explode in a messy crescendo of frustration and despair. Few even know where these emotions have come from or what the trigger was that catapulted us on fast-forward from a rational sense of well-being to an irrational one. I have journeyed on this road with my wife for a number of years and have witnessed the devastating impact of what depression and mental health does to the minds of those we love.

In a similar way, the sudden death this week of a dear friend, put’s into perspective the brevity of life and the desire of the human heart to make a difference in the world we live in. By chance, our church rents space in the school that I first met him in and where he mentored me as a young man. As I drove into the car park today, I felt the impact he made on my life at a much deeper level than I had experienced when I first heard the news in the week. I am certain that at the funeral, the loss will be felt at an even deeper level as the waves of emotion and remorse that I have little experience in dealing with, overwhelm my rationality.

And yet within all of the sadness, the light of Jesus shines ever so brightly. As I looked through those classrooms windows at a memory of a life that we once shared, I was reassured that Jesus had come to bring life… that he is the resurrection and the life. I hope that I will see my friend again one day where there will be no more sickness; he had diabetes and heart issues; no more pain; his knee’s had stopped working properly; and no more suffering; he had developed Parkinson disease.

I know my friend is in a much better place – that is the promise to all those who choose Jesus as Lord and Saviour. I don’t know of his faith as a man of 79 but I know that in his young life, he was a member of the Salvation Army. I hope that he had made his choice to live for Jesus. Certainly he didn’t speak of it, as many do not today, but as we are to be recognised by the fruit of the spirit alive in our lives, I could see that Jesus’ teachings were part of the moral compass that he lived his life by.

This is the hope that all of us can have as children of God. The gift given to us in the birth of a baby in Bethlehem just over 2000 years ago is still as relevant today. As we give our loved ones gifts this Christmas, let us all remember how God left behind the majesty of the heavens and became a vulnerable baby, needing the care of a mother and father. In his vulnerability as a child, he was exposed to the full spectrum of human emotion and the lives we all live today. He understands our humanity because he created us and lived among us.

Jesus’ own people rejected his divinity as the Son of God and sentenced him to death on the eve of the Passover. This was the feast that the Hebrews celebrated stood up, eating unleavened bread because there was no time to let the yeast work through the flour and the meat of a young lamb, sacrificed as a substitution for the sins of the people. Jesus became that sacrifice. With his body he bore the sins of the world and through his blood, he seals the new covenant that is offered to all those that choose to follow him.

This is the new life that God promises to all, the reassurance that we are all seeking. No amount of money, possessions or earthly fulfilment can replace the inner longing that we all feel from time to time but try desperately hard to ignore. It is why we can become insecure or depressed, irrational through fear and anxiety because we do not understand how much God loves us. He did not come to condemn the world but to save it. We cannot save ourselves as some would have you believe. No other religion, creed or belief system can equip the human soul as Jesus has done on the cross.

Where we were once separated from God’s protection through our rejection of his guidance, we now gain full access to God through Jesus. If we have seen Jesus, we have also seen the father who sent him. Through the Holy Spirit, we receive the full revelation of God as he works in our hearts and renews our minds, being born again with a new perspective of life that is so complete that our understanding of who we are is fully revealed. This is why Christmas is a Joyful celebration of the Good News.

As we sit with our families for our Christmas meal, we revel in the joy of the moment; what we have now and the hope we have for the things to come; the present and the future. There are many who suffer in this world for reasons that those who have no faith in him, blame God for. Yet when presented with the Good News, they still reject him? God is blamed for natural disasters, disease, war, famine and yes, even man’s inhumanity to each other- as though our own nature is God’s fault… If God is so great and powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world?

Jesus heard a similar cry when he entered Jerusalem for his final showdown with the temple authorities that led ultimately to his death and  it is the reason why he came as a baby. The people of Israel expected many different things from Jesus as we do of God today. Armed uprising denouncing Roman rule; anything that would allow the people of Israel to reclaim their birth right was requested of him, apart from what actually happened. In reality, something far greater than maintaining the status quo was achieved by God – eternal life. This is the free gift offered to you at this Christmas and indeed every day that you spend searching for that thing you think is missing from your life. This is the best gift that you could give to God... faithful obedience to live for him.

If you have not given your life to Jesus, make 2014 a year you decide to follow him as Lord and Saviour. If you want to do it today then follow this prayer and tell a Christian friend or find a local church to find extra information about the tremendous decision you have made.

Lord, I am willing to offer you my life; I recognise that I have tried to live it in my own way in rejection of what you would want me to do. I am lost and broken and need you in my life. I repent of my sinful nature and ask for your forgiveness. Fill me afresh with your Holy Spirit so that I may be reassured of your presence alive in me, sealing the new covenant that I am making with you today. AMEN.