Wearily upward

It seems that there is a restlessness in most human beings: an urge to grow, to develop, to explore, to move, to break free, to peek around the corner, to go beyond the horizon. It can take on any shape, really: learning a new language, changing careers, going on an adventure, making more money, moving house/city/country. The list can go on and on, each item as unique as the person who longs for it. Often, as Christians, we can see this urge as either a call of God or a worldly distraction, depending on what we see as Godly or worldly. And so the question arises: "Should I stay or should I go?" (where 'to stay' means to remain in the status quo, and 'to go' means to change something). And, often times in my experience, God remains oddly silent on the subject. Annoyingly so. We have come to love and appreciate the "universal short answer" or the "catchy catch phrase" that "resonates with me at the moment." It's easy to say ...

I'll be honest. I usually am when writing, but I feel the need to make this clear at the start of this blog post for reasons that will become apparent later on. I am scared. There. I said it. Even with every Afrikaner male fibre of pride and "quiet strength" in my psyche screaming not to admit it, I said it. I made myself vulnerable. And I'm admitting my fear because there may be someone else also feeling scared right now. Maybe you will find solace in what I have to say. Brexit. Global warming and climate change. Anti-vaxxers and the resurgence of various diseases that should have been dealt with long ago. Religious division (yes, even division and disunity within certain denominations of Christian churches, let alone different denominations and, dare I say it, different religions). Knife crime. Mass shootings. Corruption. War and violent conflict. Strikes. Poor leadership. Economic inequality. Gender inequality. Social injustice. Poverty. Hunger. And the list ...

So far 2019 hasn't exactly been the wonderful, blessed year I had hoped it would be. You know, you go into a new year and you have certain hopes and maybe some goals to work towards. And you expect it won't be all smooth sailing, but you're optimistic that you'll be able to take the challenges in your stride and that everything will work out well in the end. We tend to have this expectation that the good stuff (things we sometimes call blessings in the Christian vocabulary) will at least balance out the bad stuff (a.k.a. challenges, struggles, attacks from the evil one...) and at best significantly outweigh them. That seems fair. That seems like something non-Christians can get behind and start following Jesus for. And I wish it was always like that, but it's not. So we ask ourselves The Questions: Did I do something wrong? Did someone else do something wrong? Did God make a mistake? Did He forget about me? Then we try to draw connections between what we expecte...