Trouble and Sin Make Life Small

This is the reality trouble and sin create. They take a big life and make it small. They take a free soul and strangle it.

It may be your sin, or the sin of others around you. It may be trouble you have caused, trouble others have brought on you, or simply the trouble that comes with living in a busted world. In any case, life was diminished when humanity first turned away from God, and our lives get smaller when we turn away from Him today.

Like a python wrapping around its prey – slowly extinguishing life – is the effect of our turning away from God. Trouble and sin squeeze and suffocate us. Take these examples:

Anxiety. Have you noticed how your life shrinks when you try to handle it on your own? Your view is narrowed. Your main focus becomes what you’re anxious about and how you can prevent what you’re dreading. You have God on the bench while you tackle this trouble. And you either withdraw from those around you or your conversations all circle around what you’re anxious about. It can sneak up on you because anxiety presents as logical and urgent. But can you see how it makes your world smaller? You’ve disconnected from people and God. There’s just you and your anxiety. If you keep going in this direction your world will become intolerably small (some of you know what this is like). You will end up being crushed under the weight of your fear.

Temptation provides another opportunity to turn away. Take that one temptation you just can’t seem to resist. The one you have a weak spot for. You allow yourself to be deceived, and find multiple good reasons why you should give in, forgetting the pain you experienced last time. Even when you do wrestle to resist, temptation seems like it’s closing in. It can feel claustrophobic. Giving in might even seem to bring temporary relief. But your life has shrunk down to you and your temptation. The only thing that matters is getting what you want. Even all your efforts to deny yourself… it still comes down to you. It’s all about you.

Or maybe you have an enemy. Someone out to get you. They plot against you and look for your weaknesses until they find the chink in the armour, then they go for it. They drive in hard and it hurts. Or maybe your enemy is long gone. They did their dastardly act decades ago, but in so many ways it’s not over for you. You still think about it. You still feel it. You relive it over and over. You remember the pain and vow never again. You go about setting up your life to avoid it. And as you do that, your life gets smaller. Or maybe you decide you need to square things up – to get revenge. And without knowing it, the purpose of your life is overcome by the need to get them back. Justice, you say! But what’s really happening is your life is shrinking. As you pitch yourself against your perceived opponent, you make it about you. You giving them their just desserts. You dealing out justice, to your satisfaction.

Someone who knew trouble and felt it strangling the life out of him was David.

You can see this in Psalm 18:

The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. Psalm 18:4–5

Do you know this kind of trouble? The kind that won’t let up and isn’t easily shaken. It seems stuck on. You’re in its clutches and the more you wriggle and try to fight your way out, the deeper you go and the smaller your world gets. You’re no longer the wonderful person made in God’s image. Not a full orbed human anymore. Just a contorted miniature version. You are like a mime artist – stuck in a box no one can see – constrained and limited.

So, how do you get out? You need to be rescued. You need an outside source to come in and rescue you. An outside source that can put you in a spacious place. Here is how David experienced God’s help:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. Psalm 18:16–19

So, how do you get out of a tight, small place?

1. You cry out to God (v3,6). This is the beginning of the end of a constricted life. This is the beginning of freedom. Crying out to God is what happens when you lose hope in your resources. As soon as you cry out to Him your world gets bigger – even before God has done anything! Now you are operating in the court of heaven. Like a little brother who goes and tells his big brother about how another kid at school is bullying him. Nothing has happened yet, but notice all the same, the world has become much bigger. There is hope now – someone who can do something knows about it. Something is about to happen.

2. You take refuge in God (v1-3). He is not some impersonal strength, rock, fortress, deliverer, shield, horn of salvation, and stronghold. He is: my strength, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my shield, my horn of salvation, and my stronghold. God will enter your personal trouble in a specific way. He won’t settle for being a stranger or even acquaintance. You have to let Him close. You have to make it personal. So, stop hiding in false comfort (He is better than that), chip away at anxiety (there is more hope than that), and resist revenge (He is more just than that). You don’t need to be the prime mover here. He is well able to fill that role in your life.

3. You look for God’s rescue (v7-19). You need to be a little careful with this one. When we think rescue, we tend to think about Hollywood style rescue. Lots of pyrotechnics and a flashy hero. God can and does do that from time to time. But if the appearance of Jesus on the stage of history (the greatest hero ever) is anything to go by, then we need to be careful what we are looking for. It’s not that He doesn’t rescue in a flashy way, it’s just that it is not normal for him. God rescues us in a way that is best. Best for us, our soul and character, in His eyes. God’s rescue is more like chess than it is like New Year’s Eve fireworks. Sometimes we need fireworks, but deep soul work is generally slow and steady. Picture him playing chess, constantly moving the chess pieces of this world around, constantly orchestrating ordinary things so that: you can endure that temptation, you can be pulled out of trouble, you can be reminded of who he is, you don’t lose hope. A scripture here, an encouraging text there, a timely resignation, another ‘coincidence’ … the unseen hand.

So … don’t settle for a life that is small and suffocatin - cry out to God, take refuge in Him, and keep your eyes peeled for His sweet work.

Trust is Slow

A number of years ago my family and I dropped in on my sister’s family for one of our regular catchups. We spent all day there. It was Commonwealth Games time and in the afternoon we let the kids watch some of it as part of their ‘downtime’. While this crew of seven boys and one girl were normally rowdy when they got together, they quietened down quickly as soon as the TV was turned on. But it didn’t last for long. On this day, as the adults talked in the lounge, the noise from the TV room slowly built in volume from a soft murmur until it reached a raucous crescendo of cheers.

We quickly moved into the TV room expecting to see some great Australian triumph, only to discover a lawn bowls match in progress!

We couldn’t believe it.

As we wandered back to the lounge we were all a little mystified as to how anyone could get so excited about lawn bowls (apologies to the lawn bowls enthusiasts). Their hyped up cheering seemed out of sync with the slow-paced action.

This week, like billions of other people on the planet, my boys and I have been watching the Olympic games. The Olympic Games bear many similarities to the Commonwealth Games, albeit with some variations in sports and athletes. At the Olympics, the best of the best compete against each other, to find out who is the best. And when it comes to sorting out who is the best, it typically comes down to three key areas: speed, strength, and endurance. While there are events in which care must be taken, you won’t find many sports where steadiness and slowness get you onto the podium. If you want to be successful at the Olympics, you will need to be in a hurry.

For many in Australia, the Olympic Games has coincided with the spread of the COVID Delta strain and the subsequent lockdown of multiple major cities. While this combination has had a silver lining for many sports lovers, for most of us, it is a return to a kind of life we thought we had left behind.

It is Groundhog Day.

The 24/7 one-two news punch of hyperbole and images of hospitalised people struggling to breathe are back.

No one asked for it, but it is in our pockets and on our screens.

Fear and anxiety[1] have been unwanted friends for most of us in one way or another over the past 18 months. We didn’t ask for them the first time around and none of us want them back. Many of us waved goodbye to these unwanted friends as life slowly returned to some kind of normal. But for others, fear seemed to stick to them, and they have been living with it in one form or another since the start of the pandemic. Now it seems we are moving into the next stage where weariness and fear are morphing into anger – anger about having to do this all again, anger because it is not over, anger because it feels like it will never be over.

When God created humanity, he designed us with the ability to respond to threats. It is part of our God-given dominion. It is the kit God gave humanity in order to work and keep the Garden (Genesis 2:15).

Fear speeds us up.

It gets us going both physically and internally.

When threats come close, we automatically kick into gear and ready ourselves for the threat – real or perceived. But in a fallen world, this mechanism can malfunction. We can wind up in readiness for dangers which don’t exist, and stay alert long after threats have passed. Fear often leaves us in a hypervigilant state, in a hurry, running hard in so many directions we are not really going anywhere.

The pace of unhealthy fear and trust are starkly different. Here is one way to put it:

     Fear is fast.
Trust is slow.

When I think of fear, I think of a 100m sprint. The gun goes off and the goal is to get to the other end as fast as you can.

Fear is like this.

It tells you danger is out there and you need to get to work and neutralise it.

But in our fear we all too often forget about God and his loving oversight, and we end up living in a world functionally devoid of Him. Once God is out of the picture, the list of threats and dangers which need to be controlled explodes. A godless world leaves us with too much to do. Too much to know. Too much to monitor. Too much to control. The job of risk reduction is simply too big.

Trust on the other hand is like lawn bowls.

You can’t do it quickly.

If you have ever watched a game, then you know what I mean. The bowler slowly approaches the mat, gently crouches down, steadily releases the ball, and then either stands watching their bowl or strolls alongside it as it makes its way up the green. Almost nothing happens quickly in lawn bowls. There is a great deal of watching, walking, talking, and strategising – and almost no hurrying. If you are hasty and hurried then you probably won’t make it in lawn bowls. You have to be steady. You have to be calm. You have to take your time. A purposeful, methodical rhythm is the order of the day.

A slower pace and a methodical rhythm are a couple of the hallmarks of those who trust in God. They know God is the most significant actor in the world, not them. They know he is the last line of defence. They are settled in fear-filled moments because they know God is sovereign, they know He loves them, and they know He promises to make all things work together for good (Romans 8:28). These truths are ballast for their soul, and because they know them deep down, they tend not to “fear anything that is frightening.” (1 Peter 3:6)

Those who trust in God are slower paced because they rarely take things at face value.

For them, nothing is ever as it seems. When threats appear they look through them, around them, and behind them to the unseen world where God is. They are not prone to unhelpful reflex reactions. They know hasty, hurried responses, are normally unhelpful. When a threat comes, either real or imagined, their first response is to pause (sometimes only for a brief moment), remember who God is, whisper a prayer, and engage wisely with what is before them.

You can see this contrast between the pace of fear and trust in Psalm 127:1-2.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

The psalmist begins by highlighting how all human effort such as building a house or watching a city is in vain unless God is actively involved in building and watching. The tendency for those who forget about God is to overwork and under-sleep. “Anxious toil” is a vivid description. The comparison between anxious toil and trust in God is startling – sleep. Restful sleep.

Can you see the contrast in pace between fear and trust in your own life?

How would you describe the pace of your internal world at the moment?

For those who have a fast-paced internal world, I want to finish with some helpful suggestions about how you can slow down.

1.      Remember, everything is not urgent.

Fear tells you everything is urgent, but don’t believe it. Almost everything can wait for you to gather yourself, recentre on God, and work out a plan.

2.      Identify the things around you which wind you up internally.

Some of them will be things you can change (such as taking regular breaks at work) and others will be things you can’t (such as family conflict). Write them down on a page, separating them into these two distinct categories.

3.      Take a step away from the things you can.

The 24/7 news cycle is one of these at the moment. It constantly bombards you with situations you need to be worried about. It brings problems close to you which are not close at all. Don’t check it as much. Limit your time on social media. Make a pact with yourself to only look at the top story and not scroll down.

4.      Work out a plan to engage more wisely with what you can’t change.

Don’t let yourself become a slave to your reactions. Do some homework on how to navigate your particular fear inspiring situations more wisely. Search the scriptures, ask people within your church family how they navigated through similar situations, read books on the topic, ask people to pray for you.

5.      Take a step towards God.

He is close to you, closer than your phone in your pocket. He is “a very present help in trouble.” (Ps 46:1) Tell him about your worries. All of them. Read through Psalm 46, and as you do, have a conversation with God. Listen to what he is saying to you and talk to him about your worries.

6.      Physically slow down.

Don’t let your fear turn you into an out of control merry-go-round. Use your physicality to interrupt it. Look at your phone less. Turn off your notifications. Smell a flower. Listen to the birds singing. Take five minutes and gaze at the stars. Go and talk a walk … a slow walk. You are an embodied soul. What is going on in your soul affects your body, and what is going on in your body affects your soul. 

And don’t forget, while your action is important, it won’t win the day. It is never the critical piece. Your wellbeing doesn’t ultimately depend on what you do but on what God is doing. You are not the main actor. You can slow down. What God is doing around you and in you and through you is far more significant than anything you are doing.

Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ … Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:31–33

[1] While I will be using the categories fear and anxiety somewhat interchangeably, fear normally has to do with a specific identifiable threat, and anxiety is more connected to a generalised non-specific sense of danger.