This is one of those singular-plurals, as there is much more than just one challenge in this concept.
Today, as the good wife and I were praying over our lunchtime, we brought our niece before our God with petition.
This will require a little backstory. She is currently working-her-thing on a Cruise Ship in much warmer climes, on the other side of the planet. The perpetual permanent holiday for those who can afford. It is fair to say her present vocation is the opposite end of this spectrum, as she clocks hours like a Swiss timepiece. This has proven to be a stepping-off-the-edge type-of-life-experience. The components of this journey have stretched her beyond.
But this continued element generally locates the fruitful embrace; where one is on the increasing incline of life.
As I uttered words in prayer, I offered a line in regard to living the Gospelcentered missional life. This line, which intersects with the point of this piece, was: “Engage, but don’t Succumb.”
This is the balance. It can feel like a risky business, where we see ourselves as pitifully under-qualified. This will be the place of lived-through tension.
In the more post-Christian West locations, we can easily land on one end of the extreme; experiencing an almost total dislocation with our living context, so that while we are truly exiles, we act like complete foreigners, who don’t even understand the language to speak a line. As one who has spent time in a country where I had only a faint idea, I intimately grasp the importance of this language-function to genuinely connect.
As it relates to our life project, we generally retain a sense of conceptual purity, because we rarely-by-choice place ourselves in these dislocated environments, which overtly challenge our believability of the Bible’s true ideas. This type of Christianity is an attic where we store our well-remembered treasure, but rarely visit, and never clean, so have little recognition about the application to our today, nor view this as a place to entertain other people.
For my niece, the potential opportunities could well push her to the brink, especially as she becomes more comfortable. Because she is locked and loaded on a vessel without any quick release, she will likely not be able to avoid a tricky question or two. Any silence will likely be cornered. She hasn’t even had her own living quarters. Life at Sea. In such places, you quickly become confronted with the application of your ideas as more than ideals, especially as you must seek to live with consistency and coherency.
While most will not have this same opportunity, this is not necessarily a living benefit. Many times when our silence is cornered becomes the occasion where we find our Holy Spirit led backbone; where we have no other choice but to accept that hiding-out is not a practically sustainable option, and so existential compulsion forces us to move-on; to move-on from weak profession, or silent internal protest. This is just another reason why suffering tends to be so vital.
Especially in the West, our living piece-of-paradise-lost can feel like we’ve been placed on a vessel in the middle of the raging Ocean, and all we want is a dry place to land. To flip this simile with an answer, it can be about accepting the present dynamics in these specifics, with the Gospel-holding-local-church the place of your Oasis. This is where you should be perpetually refuelled for the fight, as you become better equipped to deal with any of the many challenges.
It is too easy to go through the motions without so much as raising any consternation. Social media can fear us into the most silent external remorse for what others have no conception about us. Yes, it does take courage to be Christian, which should not be understood as something the flesh can understand. This is found in the Gospel, as we consider what our Champion went through, and so take a first step as the weak made strong.
Don’t let your silence be your consent.
As a simple off-the-cuff tactic, consider asking where your contacts, workmates, or friends, find their meaning for living. Everyone is locating on some good-god-thing. At a foundational level, the Christian’s answer is through the Gospel, because this makes the most sense of the demands inside ultimate reality, and in light of the many questions. Gently challenge if their meaning can navigate through the most choppy waters. Can it sustain such watery navigation.
After all, at such times, even a rinky-dinky life-raft is much better than a sinking ship.
For the Fame of His Name