I Went To The Beach Today...
/I’ve gone to the beach for the last five days in a row.
Now, I know that statement will probably get me into a bit of trouble and I completely understand, especially after the uproar over Bondi. But let me explain…
The beach I go to is really a “locals only know” cove. It’s tiny compared to Bondi, although big enough for quite a few families and their dogs. The number of people who know about it is relative in size to the number of people who know about Bondi, so when I say only locals know, I mean only locals know.
So when I go, I do not come into close contact with anyone because there are so few people in a large, open space. Four out of the five days I have gone down there in the afternoon and sat on the sand there has been no one on the beach with me. This is not an effect of Covid. It’s just that unknown and I love it.
Water, the beach specifically, is like air to me. I can’t live without it. There is something about the lapping of the water, the rhythm of the waves, the fragrance of sea salt air that connects me into God and grounds me in the moment. There are times where I have sat down there for hours, watching the waves and sitting with Jesus as we discussed many things.
Yesterday was one such day. Right now, I’m working on repairing my relationship with God. I kind of took a can of petrol to it a few weeks ago, flicking a match onto a drenched and broken faith and set it on fire (not in a holy fire kind of way) watching it burn and along with it my hope and connection with God. I was that angry at him. Sometimes you just need to burn something (#closetpyro).
I sat there on the beach yesterday, picking through the charred remains of my relationship with God, giving space for new growth to come through, when a thought crossed my mind. There is no denying the world will never be the same after this pandemic is over. Workplaces will discover exactly how efficient they can be remotely and never go back to a physical office. People will have lost their jobs. Most of us will realise we never needed as much stuff as we thought we did. And toilet paper sales will decline at a rapid rate.
Things will change. The world as we once knew it will never be the same.
It’s like God has put us into a forced period of rest. Reflecting on this idea with a friend the other night (don’t worry, we were not at a bar and sat more than 1.5m away from each other and shared nothing) I pondered the fact that this felt a little like Job, except on a global scale. It’s like God said to Satan ‘Go, do your worst’ and Covid-19 was born. It has brought with it death. A lot of death. Death of people. Death of career. Death of social connection. Death of freedom to do whatever you wanted when you want. Death of social trust. Death of common sense in some cases.
Death is painful and hard. It brings despair and tears, brokenness and hopelessness. It is full of fear. It signifies the end of something or someone. There is a lot not to like about death.
We’re coming into Easter which will be the strangest Easter I think I’m going to experience. I won’t see anyone in my family this year. Our inaugural Family Farm Day where my whole family on my mother’s side gets together at my Grandparent’s farm for the day is cancelled. Not because any of us have Covid but because we don’t want to put our 90-year-old Grandparents in danger. I won’t see my family. I won’t go to church. All the creative things I had planned for the service will not go ahead. It’ll be me, at home, working on my books. There are definitely worse ways to spend Easter.
I always try to get myself into the headspace of the people who loved Jesus and watched him die on the cross. This might seem a bit strange, but I think we can get pretty complacent about the fact that Jesus rose again and lose the significance at what he did on the cross. Those people had no idea a resurrection Sunday was coming. All they knew, on that Friday, was the one person they believed was going to save them died. To them, everything had ended.
But in this death was when Jesus got to work. We see a tomb which was really Jesus’ home office. We see separation and loss which was really just Jesus self-isolating so he could deal with what was keeping us from God. In his death was when the real work of new life was done.
That’s the interesting thing about death, new life always seems to spring from it and generally in much more profound and vibrant ways than what was previously there.
Covid-19 is forcing us to be at rest. It is forcing us to review, to reflect, to work from home, to spend time with our families, to stay in bed a little longer because you don’t have a bus to catch. God is making us to stop. To re-evaluate. To listen. It’s almost like he is forcing us all to die in some way – our freedom, our selfishness, our me-centeredness, our gluttonous ways, our fast-paced society – all of this, it seems, God is bringing to an end. Even if it’s only for a few months. What a state the world is in for the God of the universe to do moved to do such a thing.
As I sat on the shore the other day and reflected on the death that was present in such magnitude in the world and the rest it was forcing us all into I wondered – if God is forcing me to rest, to literally give up my freedom for a while, then what has God got for me in this rest?
What is it, for me personally, that God is wanting to get to work on?
We can easily fill up these extra hours in our day right now with Netflix or fixing things around the house or working more. But what if, instead of looking at the list of all the things we should be doing, we sat back and simply asked God what he had planned for us during this time? What is it that he has for you in this rest?
How can we hold the tension of the ‘now’ and ‘not yet’?
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