Life rushes by

I am sitting on a Singapore Airlines flight. This is the short leg of the trip.. The next one is the long one.

I have written before about how strange it is to be on an international flight.. 300 bodies suspended in a tin can in the sky, everyone together in one place and dependent on the skill of the crew, but everyone in their own worlds.

I have friends who pray for God to give them someone to connect with on the flight. I pray that there is nobody sitting next to me. I wonder if that means I’m in the wrong line of work?

You might have noticed that I haven’t written a blog for a while.

Its not that Ive had some big crisis of faith (mind you I continue to have lots of small ones). It’s more that life has been rushing by and I haven’t had the emotional energy to stop and do the work of wrestling with the themes enough to make sense of what to write.

Life has been carrying me along like debris on a fast running river. Sometimes I feel the pace slow a little and I imagine a time when I can again make choices with my time, and then on again it rushes.

Do you ever feel like that?

One of the great searches of my life has been the search for the space to choose rather than getting swept away.

The funny thing is, life isn’t always like that. There are times when life feels calm and purposeful, and it seems to have very little to do with what’s actually happening.

A couple of days ago I went for a walk with my family to the source of Poatina’s beautiful water. It was so nice to be in the bush, to hear the sound of the rushing water and breathe the fresh, damp smell that is unique to the Australian bush. It was nice to simply have a day away with my family and breathe a little.

The truth is that there genuinely has been a lot happening in my life with overseas trips, massive transition in Fusion and Poatina Village and Fusion training both needing more time than I can give them.

I read a book this year that continues to challenge me. It’s called “Getting things done and it basically lays down the challenge and gives tools to take hold of your day to day life. I have half implemented some of what I have learned from it, which I think is part of the problem. I am seeing much more clearly than every exactly what I am not doing.

There is more to the story than good management planning though.

Probably the manager that I respect the most is a friend of mine who is the managing director of one of Australia’s biggest companies. I once asked him what his leadership secret was and he said that it was simple. There is one question he repeatedly comes back to: “Is Jesus in my boat”?

He gets this question from this story:

Luke 5:1-11 (NIV)
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, [2] he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. [3] He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. [4] When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” [5] Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” [6] When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. [7] So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. [8] When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” [9] For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, [10] and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” [11] So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

What my friend pointed out to me it that disciples had applied all their best strategy and skill and still drawn a blank. The moment, however, that they put their knowledge aside and trusted a carpenter from Nazareth, then the fish turned up.

At this stage of my life I must still admit to a level of immaturity. I find myself so often in the boat without Jesus and wondering why things aren’t working. Every now and then though, I catch a glimpse that life isn’t an untamable torrent and I let myself be in this moment with Jesus.

I think the reason Jesus told us that we needed to accept His kingdom like a little child is that children aren’t usually operating from a long term strategic plan or from fears about what might happen. They are in the moment.

What I appreciated about the Getting things done is the way it showed me how making choice is possible. The choice I know I need to make moment by moment though is to allow Jesus into the moments, to live with him in the details and not see them as something inhibiting my life.

I am very much on the journey towards this kind of faith. I have a long way to go. I love the glimpses I get though, of peace in the midst of what can sometimes feel like chaos.