Home isolation and away pt. 3

At this point I had two options. I could either find ways of occupying my time by giving into my cravings or fight it and overcome myself through discipline. I decided for the latter. As time slowed down and I was faced with empty days, questions that kept coming back to me was, how will I use the time I have right now instead? How do I embrace and learn contentment with unproductive time? It was no less a reorienting of both what I valued and the rhythm of how I lived.

Instead of compulsively checking my phone and emails and messages I found myself sketching and reading and writing and cooking regardless of how productive and successful these attempts were at the end of the day. The earlier frustration and boredom slowly gave way to calm towards the end of the week. In the silence there was just the slow plodding of living each day in silence, obedience and dare I say it… joy? What was important was just being before God and trusting him to provide and guide my activities for everyday. After all, wasn’t it Jesus who said that man would not live on bread alone but on every word of God?

What I think I’ve really been learning is that boredom is essential to being human. It’s just something we have to get through use our time well and create things out of love whilst developing a deeper self knowledge. Don’t get me wrong. The boredom was scary. It was scary how quickly my mind jumped to the mindless scroll of entertainment on my shiny little iPad. It wasn’t even a thought but an impulse that just led me on. I just couldn’t stand being bored! It was like a restless itch that you just had to scratch on your back. Though Pascal had been gone for nigh 400 years, his saying that much evil was done from man’s inability to sit by himself in his room still rang true with me.

The 19th century philosopher Kierkegaard once thought that the ideal human being was someone who could sit silently before God. He described our human condition as one deeply driven by anxieties like those secret fears that keep us awake at night. We can always drive it out though by delaying sleep at much as possible and by preventing ourselves from ever being alone with our selves. Yet without boredom, we never truly face these anxieties and deal with them. They continue to unconsciously drive our often irrational and erratic behaviors and come out when we least expect it like at a family dinner that erupts into World War 3 from the spillage of one tea cup.

We never truly come to know ourselves and in that way we can never become who we are. And we can never really be saved. To us our problems will always be out there and someone else’s. This makes me wonder…what else do we miss out on because we’re unwilling to be bored?

Home Isolation and Away Pt. 2

The last week has been a blur as I look back at the seven days in my apartment where time itself seem to have been eradicated. I remember craving fast food like fried chicken and pizza and chips. I also had a repeated impulse to check my phone or to watch an endless stream of youtube videos or play video games. There was always a low grade anxiety in the background that made me edgy and irritable and impatient when I spoke to my wife or felt guilty about how ‘unproductive my day was’.

They were all like symptoms of withdrawal. Maybe I was addicted to fried food and social media. And like an addict, I didn’t know what to do with myself without those things in my life. Going through it wasn’t pleasant to say the least. But at least now I knew the things I that controlled my life more than I thought I controlled it.

Social media promised me a sense of connection with others and reality as long as I was constantly engaged replying to and checking messages and feeds. Fried chicken, burgers, fries and pizza promised a world of quick and easy enjoyment every meal with minimal cooking and preparation. But all they did was make me more anxious, more impulsive and impatient and unable to enjoy living more deeply.

Joy takes time. Depth is slow. A gardener needs to plant and prune, water and fertilize his soil before he can enjoy the fruit of his labor over many years. All that fast food and social media gave me was something to run away from who I really was and what I really wanted: meaningful connection and activity.

Home isolation and away Pt. 1

For a long time I’ve been trying to give myself COVID but to no avail. After all, what could be better than natural immunity? But kissing and hugging my wife or my sister or mom and dad didn’t do it. Not wearing a mask seemed to make no difference. But last Tuesday, on the 21st of April I finally did it. I finally caught the dreaded disease from Chinatown, the one and only Wu Flu, COVID-19. It turns out that all one needed to do was to go out every day to see friends and eat out to weaken your immune system and then pick up the flu first. On Sunday, at a family dinner I caught up with a friend who later tested positive and that’s where I probably got it. On Tuesday, I showed up for work, tested positive too and was promptly sent home with the parting gift of a resident family’s verbal tirade.

Of course I’m writing all this facetiously. In NSW, the rules for those with COVID is to isolate at home for 7 days. I was not looking forward to it. I remembered the last time this happened. I was isolated under state wide lockdown in the midst of college assignments and church ministry. I did enjoy less social contact and having more free time to myself. But I also think I enjoyed it less than I thought.

The last lockdown was also a time of stress and anxiety, boredom and doubt, and a reluctance to break out of our usual busy Sydney lifestyle. Alone in the stillness and quiet, where time dilates, the only person you’re faced with is yourself… and God. It’s scary to face either one. Isolation is really a battle with yourself. It’s a battle between the fear of missing out and all your fears and desires lurking behind one’s solitude. It would be much easier to be doing anything else. This time it would be compounded by the fact that I would miss both my wife and son’s morphology appointment at RPA hospital as she entered her third trimester and our anniversary get away that we’d planned for months. I’m glad I had a copy of the desert fathers with me. Because it seems like there’s nothing else like isolation that makes you feel like a monk in his cell.

Is Easter Still Relevant For Modern People?

A hope that looks away from ourselves

Today is Good Friday. In Australia, it’s a day that many look forward to. It’s a day to relax, to go away, to enjoy the fruit of our anxious toil and to be with those we love as we celebrate new life. Food, family and friends — this is the life that is shared on a million tables across the country. Many of my friends recall childhood memories of breaking chocolate eggs and bunnies and hot cross buns with one another. Yet I can’t help but feel that Easter seems pretty mundane to me and undifferentiated from any other holiday if that’s all there is. What exactly is the new life we’re celebrating and looking forward to?

For Christians, Easter is meant to be even more special. It’s the celebration that two thousand years ago, God became a man named Jesus who conquered death itself by his death and resurrection. Easter is a time Christians remember this victory and celebrate the new life they have. But it’s also one that looks forward to the new life they will have when he returns to dwell on a renewed earth.

Again I can’t help but feel that Easter even for a Christian seems pretty mundane to me and undifferentiated from any other Christian holiday like Christmas. What exactly is the new life we’re celebrating and looking forward to? The memory of a young man’s death and resurrection two thousand years ago seems pretty uninspiring right now. The world doesn’t seem to have changed much since. How is it relevant to our modern concerns? And where is Jesus in the world? Does anyone actually know him outside of this Sydney evangelical bubble? As I walk down Parramatta square or the bakery, he seems all but shelved behind the chocolate bunnies and eggs and hot cross buns on sale.

According to the journalist Julie Cross, more than fifty four percent of young Australians are stressed about the future. A study of more than 1000 Aussie teens aged 16-21 “found the most common causes of feeling stressed about the future were study and exam pressures (39 per cent), being able to afford the lifestyle they wanted (30 per cent), being able to survive financially (29.5 per cent), building a career in their chosen field (28 per cent) and their mental and physical health (28 per cent).”

As every young person knows, we aren’t who we should to be. Whether it’s our own character or competencies or relationships or environment, the pressure of being responsible for all of it is real and breeds anxiety. Every failure becomes an indictment of who we are. How could we not be afraid of failing to live up to our expectations? This is nothing new in 2022. The 19th century painter Vincent Van Gogh felt this acutely.

When I think the eyes of so many are fixed on me, who will know where the fall is if I do not succeed, who will make me reproaches… the fear of failure, of disgrace — then I also have the longing: I wish I were far away from everything! Van Gogh, Chapter 11, Naifer and Smith, 2011.

For this year, the Common Revised Lectionary directs us to read Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42. It’s not until I read Psalm 22.6-11 that I’m reminded why Easter matters again.

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. “He trusts in the Lord,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.” Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Psalm 22 looks forward to the day that the shame and guilt of being all too human would be redeemed by God. In fact, it was in the incarnation of God as man two thousand years ago that he finally had a human being who though he was perfect, was willing to bear our sin and shame before others and God, even to the point of death.

And so the Catholic archbishop of Sydney, Rev Dr Fisher says,

Easter even focuses the light of love on our suffering to transform those who have suffered. Easter is the climax of the love-story between God and humanity. It’s the story of a love that drives out darkness, hatred and fear, that forgives sin and renews sinners, that raises up the lowly and heals the sick and grieving. Easter love means healing for every ­wounded soul.

This is a love that drives us away from ourselves and towards the God who became one of us and bore our shame to the point of death of a Roman cross only to rise victorious over it. We are not we should be. But by the grace of God, we can be who we are by being united in Jesus, free of the guilt and shame that tries to justify our existence and cover up our sins and imperfections. To live this way, one only has to look away from one’s self and look to the man on a cross.

Bibliography

“Hope Springs Eternal for Those Suffering – The Telegraph,” n.d., https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamicarticlepopover.aspx?artguid=776008e9-5096-4b67-a3c2-e52e31712386.

“Breaking down the Wall – The Telegraph,” n.d., https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamicarticlepopover.aspx?artguid=e4c766d7-305c-4240-ae34-222f9c319e62.

“Why Gen Stress Is Worried about Everything – The Telegraph,” n.d., https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamicarticlepopover.aspx?artguid=8efb3e1e-890d-4a1c-8ff9-c82edee6ceb8.

Australian summer

Oh how the wintry winds blow

Invading our summer plans

Telling us things we’d rather not know

They confuse us in the morning

As we pick and choose our wear

A collared shirt and jeans?

And with a knowing glance

They withdraw their tendrils

Snaking them to the country

Until humidity’s embrace

Drenches our T shirts

Stinks up our arm pits

Divides marriages

With cries of “BO!”

They laugh hahahaha

At these Australians’ cruel fates

Knowing they would much rather

Straight shots of sunlight

Dry roasting heat

A trip to Bondi

And a BBQ chicken to eat

Writing in the dark

I’m so tired. The plans I thought I had for writing ended up not being plans at all. But instead I messaged a friend in need, who after all is a friend indeed. And now it’s almost 11. And I’m here trying to write the truest sentence I know, trying to string one coherent line after another. It’s a bit like fishing. Except it’s not. Because in fishing you attach the bait, cast the reel and sit down to wait and you listen as hard as you can with the reel for any bites. But when you write, the bait just disappears into your subconscious. There’s no waiting for a bite. You can’t tell when some good prompt will appear or an image or an idea.

Sometimes they just flitter by and you don’t even recognize it for what it’s worth. And you tell yourself another one will come by. Then days and weeks and months can go by if you ever see an idea again; if at all. The worst part is that to catch something, you need to work. You need to work in a way that is unconventional and opposite to everything you’re taught and damn well know.

You need to work hard at not thinking about what you’re writing or what you need to write or when that deadline is due or how to say what you want to say. You need to just write one true sentence after another, the truest sentence that pops into your head, and then maybe that elusive cod will show up. You’re putting out line after line, reel after reel, and bait after bait. And then you do your darn-dest not to look. That’s what writing feels like for me at the moment anyhow.

On Maslows Hierarchy of Needs and Spirituality

I was having a conversation with a patient earlier last week. I didn’t know how she had seen me before. But she knew me as a ‘deeply religious man’ now after learning of my studies. She found herself even apologizing for her painful reactions.‘Oh s—-!’ I was amused. Poor thing. But her next comment made me pause.

She believed that humans needed to have all their physical needs met before they would even consider their spiritual ones. She was studying in grad school and knew something of Maslow’s hierarchy which postulates that humans first seek to have physical needs met before climbing up to the relational and then the spiritual ones. The highest goal of this pyramid was self actualization.

Now that I think about it, it has some freaky similarities to NeoPlatonism. Anyways I digress. To her most of her life’s problems stemmed from her physical health and her relationships. She just had no room for spirituality. Is spirituality and religion simply a luxury? Is it something that only the rich can pursue? If this were the case, religion would flourish amongst the wealthy and powerful.

I realized that there’s some superficial truth to what she’s saying. It’s hard for people to worry about their eternal destinies when they don’t even know if they have a destiny for tomorrow. And we don’t lack stories of celebrities like Morgan Freeman going on a spiritual pilgrimage before returning to the West with their new found wisdom.

But a look at both Jesus’ words and the history of Christianity and Western society would question this.

While Christianity often meets people where they’re at first, whether it’s by building orphanages or feeding the homeless, it does not seek to replace its message with its deeds. A person is not just a soul trapped in a body but an embodied soul. And Christians have always believed that God is most glorified and humans most satisfied when both body and soul are healthy. The well fed and the hungry die equally without being reconciled to God.

Christianity experienced the greatest growth in the early church in the urban margins before branching out to the rural and upper classes of Rome. It has continued to flourish likewise in the suburbs of Nigeria or Iran. And if we look at Western society as a whole, we live in the most materially abundant and safe time in its history. Yet people have never been more irreligious. Religion has no place in government or media, nor even in schools or family gatherings.

How do I make sense of these paradoxes? A rich and poor religion and physical and spiritual needs. I think there’s a spirituality that is only for the rich young ruler and a true one that everyone needs. There’s a search for spirituality that’s nothing more than self justification for one’s life, medicated by techniques like ‘mindfulness’ or ‘meditation’. They’re both equally devoid of context and any meaning. There’s a way of living that seeks only physical needs and the spiritual as an add on to one’s life. And there’s a way of living that sees the spiritual in the physical.

Jesus himself brings this great paradox to earth in his incarnation where the divine and human unite and the finite and infinite meet. Jesus shows us that God cares about both equally. Yet he affirms the primacy of the spiritual. All of the material world and its finitude is seen in relation to the infinite and immaterial God. Life and death as we know it are therefore only symptoms which we describe as ‘sleep’. Our physical life is simply the outpouring of our spiritual life. We exist either towards eternal life in God or death and separation from him.

What I’m trying to say is that Maslow’s pyramid is really a circle (or is it a spiral?). When Jesus fed the 5000 by the sea of Tiberias, he reprimanded the crowds for only following him for their physical appetites. They saw the event as nothing more than a free meal and him as nothing more than a food truck. But if only they knew who the one multiplying the bread was! They would have asked for the food which never perishes which was to believe in Jesus. Peter his apostle recognized this when he admitted that Jesus had the ‘words of life’. Where else could he go?

We’re constantly surrounded by worries – where we’ll live, how much we’ll have for our families and if the world is becoming a better place for our children. It’s easy to see our physical problems because they’re our most urgent ones. And an abstract spirituality that simply offers therapeutic techniques is just not worth looking at in such a state. But if we rightly understand life as a manifestation of the spiritual then our physical predicament becomes much more serious.

We die because we’re dead spiritually. Like our ancestor Adam, we’re separated from God and turned out from the garden of Eden. Men work to draw their food from the earth and then return to the ground they were taken from, finally consumed by their labors. Women bring others into the world through great pain and expend their life in those of their children before passing on. A physically needy world is a curse. I have no doubt about it. But in some ways it’s also a dream. Jesus has entered that dream to make reality known, to show us the spiritual in the physical and finally to remake it for our good. If only we would trust him as he ought to be. What I wish I’d said to her was ‘come and see’.

The Pied Piper of Parramatta

On a steamy summer’s night, Parramatta river is alive. The air is heavy with mosquitoes and flies. From bushes no one sees, crickets mock at passers by. And the ever watchful ibis stalks its banks looking for a cigarette butt, a garbage bag, or a stray Big Mac under its bridges. Amidst all this is the main attraction of Parramatta river — humans. Like the air, the river walk is teeming with people. Couples lie on the grassy banks smoking shisha and feeding one another, making out and embracing, arguing and cursing, oblivious to the spectacle they are, in the zoo that is Parramatta river. An elderly man sits by the wharf. His fishing line is as lonely as he is. It lays completely still and vanishes at the surface of the river, swallowed by its murky depths.

A young Asian man walks along the river after dinner. What strikes him as bizarre is what lies submerged in the middle of the river. To everyone else, it is simply the end of the normal day in Parramatta. They walk past without batting an eye. But the man is riveted. For in the middle of the river, perched on by ibises, guarded by paddling pelicans, is a shopping cart, sticking out at all the wrong angles. Is it front to back or back to front or upside down? Shaking his head, he curses and blames the neighborhood drunks. He limps on.

Soon after midnight, the river is still. Traces of shisha and cigarette smoke linger on the park benches. But there are no other memories of its night life under the orange glow of its lamps. Every now and then, the silent darkness is broken by the occasional car overhead, some party goers returning to whence they came. From near the wharf comes a melody that strangely resembles the Woolworths’ theme song… “We are the fresh food people”.

At first there is no response. But slowly silhouettes emerge from the bushes and trees and stairs along the river. Boys of all ages and ethnicities emerge from the dark. Black, brown, red, straw, blond and hazel; their hair stand out like constellations in the night sky. The last boy to step out is playing the song on a flute. He stops only when every boy from Parramatta has come forth to await him. They have been summoned. It is time for Kart club.

Every weeknight, when the moon has fully risen and glowers at the concrete zoo over Parramatta and it’s adults have grown weary of staving off their age and retired for the night, young boys from all over Parramatta and its suburbs gather around the river. They have kissed their parents good night. They have placed enough pillows under their blankets to fool the most astute dad. And they have slipped out through their windowed houses and apartment elevators to escape into the night. Dragging shopping carts they find on the sidewalks and around Westfield and from the home of any lazy adult, they ride it to the river and park it near the bushes. They wait and hope with bated breath to hear that melodious tune once more; “We are the fresh food people…”

The number one rule of Kart club is that you don’t talk about Kart club. And this is how it was formed. Between 2010-2020, Parramatta experienced unprecedented development. It became an urban hub where every developer who had money wanted to build an apartment there and every bank with a name would relocate their employees. Roads and light rail tracks and train lines would criss cross each other in a dizzying array of construction. It was like Thomas the tank engine married Sim City and gave birth to Lego. Parramatta council were too busy with their adult games to notice that they had made Parramatta somewhere with nothing to do. Children were stuck between digital screens and parents telling them to go outside… to what I’m still not sure about. For all the children could see was an ugly concrete zoo awaiting them. It was a drab and gray world outside.

But Kart club is Parramatta’s never land where boys will remain boys. And so every night, they gladly follow the fresh food summons to meet their mysterious leader; a boy who has come from and is going nowhere. They only know him as Piper. But for them, even when they are 80, he will always remain Piper as they know him, a 15 year old phantom playing that haunting tune by Parramatta river.

They find whatever objects they can and load their carts. And then they all go racing around the river walk which extends from Parramatta all the way to Rhodes. But most of the time they remain in the vicinity of Ermington. Like Mario Kart, they throw whatever they can find from their carts in order to slow or take others out. Banana peels, cigarette butts, and half drunk strawberry milkshakes are all fair game. Sometimes a lucky boy will find a creatine bar near the entrance of some gym to give him the energy to last the whole night.

This is how it ended. On a winter’s night the streets were wet with dew. An orange fog hung in the air illuminated by the broken street lamps. The races had been wet and wild. It remained for two boys to cross the finish line under the Church St bridge. Some had already gone home. But no matter. Piper skipped and flourished his flute. Suddenly the tune was changed. It was no longer “the fresh food people” but Die Walkure by Wagner. And then they heard the boys. Coming round the bend near George St, their carts skidded past the wharf. One boy saw his chance. When the carts were close enough to collide, he stretched his leg out and tapped the left wheel of the other boy’s cart.

The cart of the boy on the right skidded. Then it caught on a leftover banana peel planted by one of the other racers. And then it toppled right into the river. The cart was upended and began to sink slowly into Parramatta’s watery grave. At first the boy was fine if not wet. He didn’t know how to swim. But he knew Piper and some of the boys were nearby. So it was just a matter of time before he was rescued.

Unfortunately, the ibises got excited. They had never had such an opportunity for live entertainment whilst eating. Squawking and flapping their wings, all the ibises around the river gathered around the upended shopping cart. Some looked for actual fish that may have been stirred up around the spot. Others perched on the cart to watch. And still others flapped around the boy, probing him and teasing him out. The collective weight around his head proceeded to slowly but surely push him under. He was being held down by the ibises.

At first he laughed. Then he began to call out for help. But all he saw was the hooded silhouette of Piper who looked at him and continued to play his flute. The boy started to cry. The water was up to his nose and he was scared now. Ripples of water spread out from him. And he began to choke. The water sputtered. Still Piper played on. His notes blending one into the other into a continuous night song. He played furiously, faster and faster, missing notes but making up for them with his own harmony. Eventually his flute drowned out the boy’s cries. And then he was no more. All that remained of the night’s races was an upside down shopping cart and a flock of ibises.

In the morning, a boy in Parramatta was reported missing. His picture was printed in the Parramatta Advertiser by two worn parents who had woken up to discover only blankets and plushies where their son was meant to be. An investigation was opened into his disappearance by police and anxious parents alike. Many of the parents had already harbored concerns at how tired their boys had looked in the morning. And now it all leaked out. A frantic search took place along Parramatta river. They traced the boy’s last known whereabouts to the wharf. But all that they found was an upended shopping cart and a handful of ibises.

The body was never found. The homeless were blamed and rounded up for interrogation. And shopping carts were banned in order to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. A strict curfew of 8 pm was imposed on every boy under the age of sixteen. If the adults had looked closely enough at the ibises by the wharf, they would have been able to see tiny finger or an ear protruding out past an ibis’ beak. As for Piper, nothing seemed to remain of him. The boys of Parramatta would often wonder where he was now. But it is said that every now and then, through the heavy summer night’s air, the playful sound of a flute can be heard to the tune of… “We are the fresh food people.”

A Donkey in a Manger

The season of Christmas

Interrupts us in our everyday

Pausing our routines

Disrupting our rituals

Breaking our habits

For what we do not know

For what we scarcely hope

And for whom we dare not think

As we remember that 2000 years ago

It was not kings or adoring crowds

That greeted this baby lying there

Huddled around his manger bed

His parents consoling his cries

Without fanfare or adulation

But three wisemen

Their myrrh and frankincense

A few shepherds

A horse and some sheep

A donkey too who couldn’t even sleep

For as the baby’s cries drowned out

Even hens’ clucks and lambs’ bleats

The barn door failed to muffle the sound

And much less the cold draft

That creaked and strained its joints

As that baby tossed and turned

To mom and dad’s delight

And still concern

The donkey is oblivious

To the baby’s invitation

His ears are full of groans

His back is so sore

From a country’s baggage

His eyes droop and his mind empties

Wondering when he will next shut them

Counting down to the next sunrise

To the baby’s cries

And the parent’s surprise

For the baby’s cries are for him

That lonely donkey

Huddled in the corner to watch

And for every beast of burden

They invite him to cast his bags

Off those weary worn shoulders

To gallop across plains

To jump over boulders

And be free

Free to join those stallions by the sea

Free to roam wherever he may be

The baby cries for that girl

Selling matches on Christmas Eve

Striking them to stay warm beneath

Someone else’s festive wreath

Under the drifting snow

Under human cruelty

Her time ticking away

With the clock

As midnight approaches slowly

The baby cries for that orphan

Longing to share his ham

With a sir or a madame

Even some turkey with a donkey

Would be better than sitting by

The fireplace staring at

The sky and wondering why

The baby cries for you and for me

The baby’s crying still

When we remember that 2000 years ago

Heaven’s time met earth

Kissing it and its inhabitants

Transporting transcendence

Into our very immanence

Will we be lifted up, up and away

Above our homes and far away

To a place of hope

A hope out of this cycle

A hope of the new

The new year and the new me

The new you and the new view

Of the world and all in it

Or will we rub our eyes

Under those Christmas lights

Scarcely able to believe such lies

Stuffed with pudding and tea

Wondering when that rest will come

When we can sleep deeply?

How do you balance being still before God and working in faith?

Dear Captivate slido person,

I assume you’re a real person. But if it was a bot’s question, I’ll be starting to worry for humanity. Nevertheless, thank you for asking it. It took me such a long time to write this because it’s such a big problem (and you asked a good question). So rest assured you’ve done us all a favor because you’re probably not the only one asking this. You’re wrestling with the importance of being before God and the work that you’re doing for him. Perhaps they almost seem like opposite ends of a seesaw. When one goes up, the other goes down.

I think it is a distinctly modern problem to see them as an either/or. If being still before God is opposed to working in faith, doesn’t that mean that the latter is more important? After all, Christians want to be first and foremost faithful people. And by gosh you’re right — there’s so much to do! How can we possibly be faithful with all the possibilities before us to do good? Aren’t we making time for God, the king of the universe, by doing his work? Maybe if we get time at the end of the day, or week, or month, or even year… we’ll get around to being still before him then.

Knowing that you have to be still before God on top of all that you have to do for him is a sure fire way for a guilty and joyless life. But what I want to encourage you to see is that faith is not a work. It’s the posture of your heart. As one lecturer of mine said, “faith is not trusting more in God, but trusting less in yourself.”

Being still before God and working in faith are not opposed to one another. In fact, being still before God is what it means to be faithful. It is its essence. It is in that stillness that we acknowledge our dependence and our need for him. Being still is like the breath of our soul. Have you ever tried to move around just by exhaling? It’s not fun and it doesn’t last very long. Inhaling by being still before God is necessary before doing anything else.

Let me elaborate on this. We need to decrease before God, so that he can increase. The reason why being still before God is essential to faith and even is faith, is because faith is not obedience, which is why Paul says he is charged with bringing about the obedience of faith (Rom. 1). Faith resides in the deepest corner of our heart as the object of our ultimate trust and dependence. To be a faithful Christian is to make a movement of the heart, change its posture, to trust less in ourselves and more in God as the one who establishes and justifies our existence.

Faith is how we see. When you understand this it changes everything. Our modern Western culture, especially in Sydney, values life based on productivity. It’s the first question we ask to find someone’s identity besides their name — “what do you do?” So of course faith is what we produce because it is our work that justifies our self worth and our life. It’s hard for these habits to go away when we become Christian because they were so ingrained into our old imagination of the world. You may even measure your faith based on how frequently you read the Bible and pray or how much you serve at church.

But we never measure up do we? Maybe you’ve felt the guilt that comes with spending time alone or with God. After all, there’s all this work that God’s calling and beckoning to you with. Being still before God feels like doing nothing. It feels like faithlessness. Doing nothing is so detestable to our culture that not being busy can even seem like a sin. We’ve got to be busy even on our vacations! Yet whilst we as humans are busy looking at outward appearances, God looks at the heart (1 Sam.). In fact, his eyes run to and fro on the earth looking for someone who first and foremost, fears him and trembles at his Word (Ps; Deut. 6.5). Remember the story of Mary and Martha?

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Lk. 10.38-42

My prayer for you then dear Captivate slido person, is that you learn like Mary to choose the good portion, to sit at Jesus’ feet, and learn silence, obedience and joy before him. And just like the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, you will know that your Heavenly Father cares for you, that nothing you do will change his love for you, and that his peace which surpasses all understanding, will be with you. Like the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, your work will be seen in all its beauty and God given glory. Because it is his and not yours. You simply have to be.