Let go

I can be quite an anxious person, a quiet in-the-corner worrier trying to see the bright side. I have lost count of the number of times this verse has been given to me (thanks, if one of those times it was you): “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

 

You might think that’s easy to say – but I find this verse very reassuring, because this isn’t twee advice, this is God. This is God telling us through Paul that we do not actually need to be anxious. At all. Things trouble us, but we don’t need to drown in them.

 

We had a helpful discussion in our Bible study group last week, based on this verse, about letting go of anxieties and burdens. Somebody famous apparently once said, in response to a concern about constant prayer seeming to make no difference, ‘Stop praying’. Not because we shouldn’t take the things that trouble us to our heavenly father – of course we should – but sometimes we can think we are letting go in prayer and all we are doing is reminding ourselves of the problem and going over and over it in our minds. We can get stuck in a loop of telling God all about this situation we’ve been in for months and analysing how and why it is the way it is – but without actually giving it over to him. One member compared it to the classic “Don’t think of an orange”. (Are you now thinking of an orange?)

 

Don’t think of an orange. Especially not this one.

 

Prayer isn’t magic – we won’t necessarily feel any different, and the problem itself may not disappear. But if we believe God is capable, kind, loving and fair, then part of praying about these things should be letting go of them. We are dependent on God, and that’s the point. 

A leap of faith

Before Christmas, a friend challenged me to do something I “wouldn’t usually do”. So this week, I agreed to go climbing (this is where we went). It was much chalkier than I expected, but the crash mats at the foot of the walls were reassuringly bouncy.



The Depot: Nottingham

 
From the off, I banned the word fail (it’s not too confidence-building), and we opted instead for “deferred success”. A very appropriate term for an activity like this, where quite frequently at first you don’t succeed. But you try, and try again.
 
The moment of deferred success that has most stuck with me was my second attempt at a particular course I hadn’t managed first time around. There was a point where I knew in theory what had to come next, but just didn’t believe I could do it. I was about ready to give up, when I heard the words “I have faith in you”.
 
What was intended as an encouragement served instead as both a guilt-trip and a challenge for my pride. Still not brimful of confidence, I just had to take a leap of faith – and it worked. I reached the top and felt I had indeed done something I wouldn’t normally have done.
 
How often is this true of all us, in all sorts of things! To get any further up the metaphorical (or in this case, physical) wall, we sometimes have to let go and remove our feet from their safety ledge. We won’t necessarily succeed the first time, and we might not even enjoy the process. But true deferred success and a sense of retrospective fun can make it all worth it.

New year, new start?

 

 
Happy New Year! New year, new start, new me... The year has just changed, which means we’re all now new people, much more capable of doing good things than we were last week. Or something.
 
The trouble is, as we discover every year, resolutions are like rules: made to be broken.
 
It’s not that setting ourselves goals of healthier lifestyles, tidier houses, better friendships, more organised work lives, or whatever it might be, is not a good thing to be doing. It’s just that we are human, and we make mistakes. By creating a list of ideals at the start of each new calendar year, we seem to be setting ourselves up to fail. With all the sincerity and effort in the world, we’re not going to be perfect people in 2014.
 
If we could fix ourselves by trying harder, there’d be no need for God to send Jesus to rescue us. (We celebrated that just last week, remember?)
 
But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to ignore our shortcomings and simply live our lives ever more selfishly. Instead, this year, I’m humbly advocating identifying “themes” to work on – areas of life where there is room for meaningful improvement that we can talk to God about, and work out together how to glorify him in them.
 
It being a new year becomes irrelevant – it’s never a bad time to work on being holy. What is more, whenever we fall down, we can rely on God’s grace to help us back up.

Cake-mixed metaphors

Family and friends will know I like to bake the odd cake. My most frequent cake is a chocolate one – a family favourite with reliable results. The trouble is that baking is an art, not a science, and while you can follow the recipe and control the variables fairly well, no two home-made cakes are identical. (Not even this pair I cooked up with a friend recently, though they came pretty close...)

Things go wrong sometimes (that’s life). And the last time I made my usual cake, the poor sponge couldn’t quite take the weight of the icing I poured on the top.
 

 
The icing on the cake was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I thought. Which just goes to show that I don’t actually think about the things I put into words. If George Orwell was alive today he’d be turning in his grave. (I wish I had come up with this line, but it’s actually a misquote from the film Brassed Off.) Orwell lamented the decline of the English language, noting (amongst other things) that “incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying”.

But isn’t that part of what makes language fun?

Days like this

Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs.
Each step seems far too high,
My legs too weak
To carry me.

Some days it’s hard to finish a task.
I struggle to see a reason why
I should not put it off
Until tomorrow.
 
Some days it’s hard to keep worry at bay,
The anxious thoughts, 
The nervous tension,
Panic, guilt and shame. 
 
Some days it’s hard to stand up tall,
Pinned to the bed or couch
By a small voice of fear that says 
There is no point at all.
 
Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs,
And some days I bounce up them
Two at a time.

Could do better

Mind-reading is a complex business. No, really. Sometimes there’s too much interference going on to be able to see clearly inside someone else’s head and read their thoughts... 

One of the things I find tricky - especially in a professional environment - is doing work for someone who has a fixed vision of the outcome. It can be demoralising to put effort into something and then to be sent away to do it again, and difficult to be patient with requests for changes that seem insignificant or contradictory. I often reach the point of thinking, why don’t they just do it themselves? 

It can be hard to please perfectionists. It can be hard to please a group of people with varying opinions (as a book-cover-designer friend of mine will testify!). It can be hard to please people who are never really sure of what they think in the first place.

Yet I know on the inside that the root cause of my upset is really my own pride and selfishness. I want my tasks to be easy, and my efforts to be praised. It’s hard taking correction and admitting error or weakness. It’s not that I’m a better person - I’m sure I would be the same in their position (and quite possibly worse; relinquishing control and delegating is not easy!). 

But wouldn’t it be great if we could use this kind of situation for good, instead of for fuelling our own resentment and negativity? Each instance of correction is an opportunity to serve. And serve again. To be patient and understanding, and to work hard to get it right. To accept someone else’s suggestions, and to learn for next time. To produce the second (or third, or fourth, or fiftieth) attempt with a smile. It’s not all about me. 

Never give up hope

I’ve heard it said that the danger of “switching off” to watch TV is that we can absorb all sorts of unhelpful messages without properly filtering them. I was recently watching an episode of BBC One’s Merlin (The Sword in the Stone, part 2), where Isolde says to the lovelorn Gwen yearning after King Arthur: “Never give up hope. Love is stronger than anything.”

I had to press pause and consider this for a minute. I thought about some of the things that my heart has yearned for, and I thought, actually, that’s not always the most helpful advice to give someone. I’m sure the same can be said for many of us - on our journeys through life, we desire things that we are not meant to have, that we cannot have, or that sometimes are just black-and-white wrong for us. Sometimes, we instead need people to say to us, “let go”.

The one thing - the only thing - in which we are to hope constantly is in Jesus, and in the joyful peace and the future promise that his death and resurrection offer to us.

“Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:22-23)