It strikes me that most people inhabit one of three states of being. As I sit and listen to those who come to Launde Abbey Retreat House I hear stories of people’s lives which are all over the place. They are either running around like a headless chicken with ever more demands being placed upon them, or if they are actually managing to find some space in their increasingly busy lives their mind is whirling around full of distractions as they think about the things that have to be done, or they are just totally and utterly worn out and incapable of doing anything! In this state people hope — and pray — that they might have another glimpse of God which will keep them going and their faith alive before God is totally squeezed out.
So what can we do to enable us to find our way through the mess of our ever more complicated, demanding and hectic lives? A good place to begin, I always think, in sorting out such mess is to look at Christ. In the Gospels we encounter Jesus — perfect man and perfect God — struggling with the same things as we struggle with. He is also faced by many different and even conflicting demands from those around him — whether it be the crowd, having been fed, demanding that he should become the political saviour of the Jews or the demand of a mother who wants him to place her sons at his left and his right hand in the Kingdom. He is also faced with distractions which could lead him away from God’s calling — whether it be the temptations of the devil or the demands of the crowds at the crucifixion. He is also faced with that sense of being totally worn out by those demands and distractions to the point whereby he has to withdraw from them as he cannot take any more.
What can we learn from Christ? What would he have us do? — After all he knows us intimately from before we were woven in the depths of the earth as the Psalmist tells us! Christ faces the demands of others head on and rejects them putting the calling of his Father first: “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” (Jn 13:8) and “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done.” (Lk 22:42). Christ faces the distractions created by those around him head on and rejects them putting the calling of his Father first: “It is said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”’ (Lk 4:12). Christ faces that overwhelming sense of tiredness head on and rejects it putting the calling of his Father first: “And after he had taken leave of them [the crowd], he went up on the mountain to pray.” (Mk 6:46).
We are surely called to do likewise! To listen ever more attentively to our calling and to follow in Christ’s steps so that we might do the things that only we can do, become what Christ has given us and reach the potential that he has created within us. In struggling to do that we will glimpse God and know his presence within us!