There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. Eccl. 3:5
One of the things I love about church services is the way God often catches me by surprise with new twists I wasn’t expecting. I am used to thinking theologically throughout my week as I study and write about Scripture, but this very discipline can also limit my understanding. Like any pastor or teacher I risk developing a theology overly based on “the gospel according to me.” But the wider expressions of a church service offer a safeguard against this by providing fresh images, concepts, wordings and interpretations that I would’ve never thought of myself.
Anne Smith, the pastor at the Church at Southpoint, is one of my favourite sources for such fresh imagery. She is very good at finding memorable metaphors in everyday life. As part of a recent call to worship, Anne spoke about watching kids at Crescent Beach jump off the end of a pier into the water below. The current there is strong enough that by the time you have resurfaced from your dive, it has carried you a few yards away from where you first entered the water.
Anne observed how kids sometimes hold onto the pier and let the current lift their legs until they are horizontal to the water. She shared how that reminded her of the way we sometimes have to hold onto God when there are strong currents pulling us downstream. We can all relate to such times when life is a blur and we find ourselves reaching for a much needed spiritual anchor. But then Anne flipped this metaphor around and had us consider the possibility that perhaps God was not the pier, but the current. Sometimes it’s the pier we are holding onto that we have to let go of in order to let ourselves be taken by God’s current in life. What we need to exercise at those times is not tenacity but the virtue of trust.
Anne concluded her call to worship by inviting people to identify where they presently are in relation to these two metaphors. “Perhaps you are desperately trying to return to God right now, while life seems to be pulling you away,” she said. “Or perhaps the Lord is inviting you instead to let go of the pier you are holding onto for security and to trust that He will carry you in the current of His love.”
The two metaphors describe well the gamut of spiritual direction that we all go back and forth in—the tension between form and freedom that we live with. There are times when we are straying and that the Lord calls us to re-anchor ourselves in Him. At those times we are to lash ourselves more securely to the mast of Christ lest the draw of the world, or of our fears and worries, pull us even farther from God. But there are other times when the very things we are holding onto are themselves the problem—perhaps it is our circumstances, our expectations or our entrenched concepts. They curtail our freedom as we cling to them, rather than God, for our security. At those times the Lord encourages us to loosen our fear-based grip and to allow ourselves to float more trustingly according to the flow of His guidance.
Two metaphors with two very different applications. It is good to know which direction the Lord is indicating as you read this today, as either one might well be the corrective you need.
Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:
- To what extent do you think your theology might be based more on “the gospel according to me” than it should be? In what ways have you seen God use the diversity of creative expressions in a church service to offset this hazard?
- Which metaphor best describes your usual relationship with God: do you usually see God as a “pier” that you hold onto, or as the current that you wish to freely abandon yourself to?
- What are the “piers” that secure you in life? Which ones represent the security of holding onto God? Which ones might be false securities that the Lord would rather you let go of?
FOR PRAYER: Hold both these metaphors as possible images of your present relationship with God. Ask the Lord to apply them to the many relationships of your life. Pray for tenacity if that is what the Lord is indicating, or for trust to release whatever false security He is asking you to let go of.