I pray, therefore I am
Kingdom go-time: a wholehearted sprint
Life is very full, and I give thanks to God for each relationship and responsibility that he has laid in my small hands. I have grown fond of saying that since I am living for the Eschaton—which is imminent (however God defines the impending)—it is ‘kingdom go-time.’ For many years now, in my spiritual imagination my life has been conceptualised as a decisive, wholehearted sprint towards the throne of my Father, as I (seek to) run with face flushed and lungs bursting, with all of my joyful might, in the path of his good commands. The operative question becomes: What will I do with what I have been given that will bring pleasure and glory to my Father for the few days of my sprint before I see his face? In this way, each conversation and every endeavour are sacred opportunities to love well and to begin looking more like the One to whom I run. The following are a few present portions of this exhilarating life race…
Teaching in Greece
For the last two weeks of September, I had the privilege of partnering with the Greek Bible College in Pikermi (just east of Athens) by teaching a two-week intensive on the book of Job. The warm, faithful people at this institution serve the Greek evangelical church with robust theological education—the only institution of its kind in the country. My class belonged to the school’s English track, so my 18 tremendous students were internationals, predominantly coming straight from refugee camps on Greek islands where they are engaged in full-time ministry. A few other students of mine are taking a gap year after graduating high school. What a good-natured, sincere, curious bunch! The Lord was so kind to us as we journeyed through Job and savoured its essential import for steadfastness in the life of faith. ‘Grace abounds!’ regularly came bursting from my lips and was picked up by my students. :-) I pray that these dear ones have been shaped by their encounter with the text and one another and primed for lifelong wrestling with Job.
Academics in Cambridge (and beyond)
After teaching in September, the scholarly rhythms to which I returned in Cambridge were as rich as ever. My dissertation research has continued with writing a behemoth (pun very much intended) chapter on the divine whirlwind speeches (Job 38:1–42:6). I continue to read for and refine my dissertation’s introduction (version 4.0 at this point?), which is foundational in setting out my scope, purpose, and methodology for the entire project. Alongside the dissertation, I have been working on a paper to present at a biblical studies conference (SBL) in San Antonio in November. As an aside, I am hoping, perhaps with far too much optimism, that my body will be relatively resilient during jet lag-whiplash, given that I will be following this five-day trip with another Stateside venture two weeks later! Also I am co-authoring an article on Job with my PhD supervisor for a forthcoming edited volume.
Student ministry
Another significant dimension of my life during Cambridge terms is undergraduate ministry at my local church. I belong to the student pastoral team which serves the ~100 undergrads who call Holy Trinity their church home while at the University of Cambridge or Anglia Ruskin University. Every Tuesday we have student night consisting of a shared meal, sung worship, a sermon, and small groups, with some lovely unstructured chats on either end of the evening. I am present as a pastoral support for the student leaders and across the whole student community. In October, I had the opportunity to preach Genesis 15 at student night, which was such a joy. There is nothing quite like connecting a seemingly bizarre ancient text to the gospel for getting my eyes wide and blood pumping (and seeing a few jaws drop mid-sermon), as the tenacity and ludicrousness of divine love positively resounds! I also meet weekly with several female students for one-on-one/two discipleship.
Lyn’s House
The home where I now live belongs to a ministry called Lyn’s House, which seeks to create spaces and rhythms for friendship between adults with and without intellectual disabilities. Practically speaking, there are several dimensions of community. Our household of three Christian young adults shares dinner once a week and also prays together throughout the week. My housemates are absolutely marvellous chaps with whom it has been so life-giving to share a home. Once a month, we coordinate a big tea party for the whole Lyn’s House community. Fortnightly (PSA to Americans: please consider adopting this immensely useful word), I host a meal group of 6–8 people at my house; we chat over warm drinks, pray and sing, and then gather around the table for dinner and dessert.
It has struck me in my early days of being at Lyn’s House that the line of ‘welcome’ is blurry: Who is welcoming whom? In one sense, I am doing the welcoming, being a resident in the house who plans, emails, facilitates, cooks, cleans, etc. But truly, I am the newcomer honoured to be welcomed into the lives of these precious friends, some of whom have been part of this community since its inception 10 years ago.
The slowness of prayer: an examined life
The obvious liability with invoking a phrase like ‘kingdom go-time’ is the potential to communicate and acquire the mentality that God needs us to do things for him and thus drags us through an unbearably-paced race—running us into the ground, as it were. Yet nothing could be further from reality! It is actually quite freeing within a biblical worldview to register that God does not need me in the slightest (but delights to draw me in) and that I will die soon and swiftly be forgotten on earth (though not by God). Hence life is a ‘sprint.’
Sometimes life feels more like a marathon though. As time and mundanity and labour and struggle stretch on, it is essential to practice diligent maintenance of one’s motive-structure and perspective on reality. It is essential to examine one’s life in God’s company, illumined by the light of his face. It is essential to pray. Lately when people ask how they may be praying for me, I simply ask them to pray for my prayerfulness. Let it not be that, by negligence of prayer amid a flurry of activity, I become blind and numb to anything God would wish to teach me.
A real-time example of my attempt to invite God’s examination and instruction through prayer: Various challenges of the summer coupled with prolonged meditation on the book of Job have underscored for me how small, weak, vulnerable, and fallible I am. What do I know, and what can I do? In view of my creaturely finitude, I have taken to praying, ‘Lord, please do not give me what I think I want if that would not leave me looking more like you and more of use to you in your kingdom.’ This is an incisive, demanding prayer to pray as I learn to trust God’s wisdom more than my own, to delight in what he chooses to give more than what I imagine I want. For me, this prayer is an exercise in disentangling my heart from false gods and gospels (i.e., objects of worship and ‘good news’ narratives, respectively) and wresting my adoring gaze back towards God’s face.
Friends, life is a marathon. Remember that prayer is life-sustaining, life-renewing communion with God that enables perseverance. In beautifully paradoxical fashion, running well, I think, ultimately flows from slowness of spirit. What more is there to ‘do’ in life but to rest in the God who has finished the work and to beckon others into his rest? Riffing on Descartes (though I am no philosopher and welcome correction), I have started toying with construing human ontology this way: ‘I pray, therefore I am.’ What if to be most fully human is to be a creature of prayer, emphatically locating existence only in relation to the transcendent Creator who becomes immanent in the practice of prayer? I think the Scriptures show humans at their best when they listen to God’s voice and direct their cries of both anguish and praise to the only One worthy to receive them. What mystery, what glory! We breathe in, we breathe out, and we keep running…