Engagement

‭Luke 11:23 (NLT‬) -

“Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.

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‭James 2:17 NIV‬

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

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At the time that I have begun writing this, it is 1:19 am. It has not been a good day. I have spent quite a lot of time distracted by a game I downloaded on my phone yesterday, rather than working on an assignment I have due this week. I had a choir rehearsal in the evening and intended to spend some time after that working on my assignment but when I arrived at the computers, I got distracted again and spent the next 2.5 hours wasting time yet again. All this led to me leaving uni at 12:15 am with a flat phone and only one bus left to leave the city on, having made no progress on my assignment and feeling very, very angry.

You see, this is not the first time I've been in this situation, yet I never seem to learn from my mistakes. I was frustrated, tired, and quite fed up with my own inability to make progress or focus for even a short period of time. I was venting to God pretty hard on that bus trip (and the walk that followed), and I was not in a mood to be comforted.

However, in that incredible way that only He can do, God used the situation to open my eyes to the real root of my problem, giving me clarity on how one thing has been affecting almost every aspect of my life - engagement.

Now, I'm not talking about the kind of engagement that leads to marriage, which I'm sure will disappoint my girlfriend when she reads this (sorry Pip!). Instead, I'm talking about how actively we connect with and direct each aspect of our lives and relationships. During my trip home, God showed me how everything I'm struggling with internally at the moment is a direct result of my refusal to engage with my life, in particular the parts of it that frustrated, grieve, annoy, or exhaust me. Rather than proactively responding to those negative emotions in order to discover and resolve their source, I have been doing anything I can to disconnect, ignore, and distract myself from them.

When I look around at our world, I realise that almost everyone does the same. In my case, it looks like videos and games to distract myself, sleeping in so I don't have to face the world and my problems. For some, it takes more obvious forms like alcohol or drugs. For others, less obvious methods, like overworking themselves, shutting off their emotions, or grabbing for power, money, or approval. In some way or another, most of us prefer to disconnect from our thoughts, feelings, and lives when things are getting tough instead of engaging those areas.

In fact, it takes a huge level of courage and humility to admit that there are parts of our lives and selves that aren't going great, and to choose not to run away but to stand and face them so we can see them for what they really are and resolve them. After my reflections last night, I now believe that one of the most revealing signs of a mature and healthy person is a willingness to engage, fully and actively, with every aspect of their life at all times.

It's not to say we shouldn't have coping mechanisms - it's important that we have ways of dealing with and relieving our stress, and that will look different for different people. But the difference between someone who avoids their problems and one who engages them is that an avoidant person uses a coping mechanism as a crutch until it becomes part of the problem, while an engaging person uses a coping mechanism as a means to reflect on, identify, and address their problems.

The most significant aspect of our life requiring our engagement is our relationship with God. God makes it clear that He does not want a relationship with people who don't ever engage with Him. Being in relationship with God, the same as being in a relationship with any person, requires effort. It isn't about doing everything for them, being the best person all the time, or never failing them - in fact, those kinds of expectations will make you more likely to avoid, because you'll get tired of trying to maintain such impossibly high standards all the time. Instead, it is about being present, spending time with them, getting to know who they are and what they love, and recognising when we done the wrong thing, apologising, and returning with the intention to learn from our mistakes, even if that takes a while.

Our relationship with God is no different. He doesn't expect perfection from you, but He does expect your engagement. He wants you to be present with Him, spending time and enjoying being with Him! He wants you to get to know Him, both through how He reveals Himself to us through the Word and how He reveals Himself to us in prayer. As we get to know Him better and understand what He loves, it should motivate us to join Him in His mission to reach out to others and demonstrate His love to them.

This is what James was talking about when he said that faith without works is dead. It isn't that faith requires works to live - that puts us in the position of trying to "earn" our faith, an impossible and exhausting task. However, the evidence that we trust in God and have a deep, engaged, connected relationship with Him is that we are joining Him in sharing His love with the world through our actions and interactions with others.

Truth be told, engagement is tough. I know I certainly struggle with it, and being aware that it's the problem I'm facing doesn't necessarily help me to deal with it! It isn't an action so much as a lifestyle and a way of thinking and being, and making the shift from constant avoidance to that lifestyle is a journey that can take a long time. When we do finally engage every aspect of our lives, however, and especially our relationship with God, our entire life - our entire world - flourishes.

That's all for me for now. It's actually morning for me now, so if you'll excuse me, I need to finally get out of bed so I can try to engage with my day. Love you all!