If God hadn’t declared His creation ‘good’, I’d be having serious doubts about 3 January. It don’t feel good. Not one little bit.
It feels rainy and messy. I’ve tried rugging up with positive thinking and, surprise, surprise, it’s still bypassed the scarf of resolution. 3 Jan, my friends, is an unstoppable trickle, running down the back of my neck and giving me spine-chill.
Some people relish the challenge of the new. I admire them…from the sanctuary of my duvet-ed bunker. Hello you weirdos! Jogging past my window wearing your shiny new year clothes and faces. I’d love to be like you, with your optimism and your go-get-em-carpe-diem-dynamism. But alas, I’m a little chicken heart. All that noise and colour is too much for squashy folks like me. I might get hurt. I might try and do something that I really want…but then FAIL. Imagine! Not being The Best. Or Not Good Enough. Far safer to stay in here where it’s warm and cosy and watch other people do their thing instead.
You see, I’ve tried living. Or at least, living like the magazines suggest. New year, new you? Been there: The question is – which one?
I’ve exercised: running in the snow till my toes bled, jumping like a frog in a blender to wii-fit, bending myself into impossible shapes.
I’ve juiced as if my life depended upon it. Taken multivits, ginseng, green algae, goji-shakes.
I’ve shopped for enough clothes and accessories to drown Gok and Trinny and all the rest.
I’ve studied. Gone to uni. Twice.
I’ve volunteered. Worked. Recycled. Given blood. Tried to be ‘good’.
Sorry, but if that’s living, I’m not interested. It looks like tyranny instead.
But what’s the alternative? There was a point in my life where I did all these things at once. This ended so badly that I went to the opposite extreme and stayed in bed for several years. I couldn’t switch my brain and my drives off until I’d ground myself into a total mush of expectation, performance and self-loathing. And then I didn’t want to get back up. Because what was I getting up for? A different sort of treadmill?
As I look down the barrel of 2012, I’m reminded of this. I see two ways to ‘live’: ‘all’ or ‘nothing’. Both fill me with fear. Both seem impossible – and yet, all too easy. Left to my own devices, I’ll choose both. I’ll stay in control and I’ll live in a neat and cosy coffin. But there is a third avenue. It’s spacious and scary and there are other people on it. I don’t know where it ends and I’m only a little part of it, not the whole. But I’m praying I can walk on it, a day at a time. And that this chicken heart can look to the lion.
I know exactly what you mean, except that I can’t quite see the 3rd way yet; it still all feels like the options are a constant battle between all (work, career, family, expectations, friends, money) or nothing (hiding in the duvet). Can you be more specific?
The only way I can get my head around it as a Christian is to recognise that whether I succeed or fail, Christ is never going to turn away from me, and so stop worrying about all and nothing. Before I was married though success in anything didn’t bother me at all. But now, people are relying on me to not fail, to not hide away as I would want to – and I really do.
Hi Emma and David,
As I’ve been reflecting with some people I know who have experienced periods of depression we’ve noticed two patterns of thinking that you’ve been talking about: all or nothing and right or wrong. I’m sure sometimes it’s really helpful and appropriate to see things in terms of those choices but I wonder if biblically there are other categories too: step-by-step and just holding ground – ‘standing’ as well as all or nothing and wise versus unwise as well as right versus wrong. By putting everything through the grid of is this *the* right decision or wrong one and load on top of that an all or nothing expectation it seems we rob ourselves of other ways of thinking about things that God provides for and which almost always seems to impinge on the (scary) gift of Christian freedom substituting it with a feeling of control so that we can try and deal with our fear and cover our shame.
Your use of the word tyranny is a tad overblown there!
Hi David
Yes – the pressure not to fail others is the one that often drags us down most. But sometimes the people I want to impress/look after most are the very ones telling me to stop trying so hard.
I guess I’d agree with Matt (thanks Matt!) about standing rather than necessarily retreating or advancing. In practice, for me this looks like maybe doing one or two things in a day where I feel like I need to achieve everything or just not bother. Both having no expectations and high expectations seem to be coming from the same place – and I don’t know exactly what it is, except that there’s pride and fear and the desire for control in there. Both ‘I’ve got to be better than everyone else’ and ‘I’m not as good’. The freedom of the gospel is that it lifts me out of the comparisons game and puts me in a situation where I have no control (frightening) and nothing to prove (liberating). It’s scary waiting on the Lord too, when the temptation is to run away or rush forward.
Thanks Matt – this is very helpful.
Hi Emma
Yes, it’s interesting how our language reflects the ways in which we think…’tyranny’ being an example of the black and white thinking I’ve trying to avoid!
I often exaggerate (it used to drive my mother mad), so you’re probably right. In this instance tho, I’m inclined to stick to my guns. Although it’s self-imposed, the desire to do everything and to do it right feels – and felt – like a tyranny – an oppressive system of rules that I could never keep.
Ways 1 and 2 are so related aren’t they? You can almost hear the hiss “….ye shall not ssssurely die…ye shall be as gods.” Way1 says: You Are God (doing all, being all) . Way2 says: You Suck-You’ll ALWAYS suck-Eat **** and Die (because you’re not God doing all and being all). Both lies obscure the freeing truths of Way3: I can do all things THROUGH Christ who strengthens me,and: His yoke is easy and his burden is light. This is worked out for the rest of our lives, one step at a time.
Ways 1 and 2 are so related aren’t they? You can almost hear the hiss “….ye shall not ssssurely die…ye shall be as gods.” Way1 says: You Are God (doing all, being all) . Way2 says: You Suck-You’ll ALWAYS suck-Eat **** and Die (because you’re not God doing all and being all). Both lies obscure the freeing truths of Way3: I can do all things THROUGH Christ who strengthens me,and: His yoke is easy and his burden is light. This is worked out for the rest of our lives, one step at a time.