The world has gone mad. I mean, it is literally off the scale, and I don’t think this is all to do with COVID, I think this has been happening for a long time.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe that COVID has changed a lot of things in our lives, and I reckon that it has hastened the speed of madness, but I really don’t think it is the only cause. If you ever listen to the CodeLife Cymru Podcast you may well have heard Jon Butler and I talking about the effect that social media, our devices generally, and the news can have on our souls. I genuinely believe that we are at a crossroads and God is inviting all of us to find peace and hope in Him in the midst of all this madness.
I was reading my Bible the other day and it struck me in a new way just how different the life that Jesus offers us is from the life we have become accustomed to in the everyday world around us:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Matthew 11:28-30
Sometimes we can lose sight of the goodness that Jesus has for us. We lose the freshness of the Gospel. The fact is that although Jesus is very honest about the trouble we will all face in life, He is equally honest that in Him we will also have recovery, rest, freedom, and a lightness that can only ever be genuine when it comes from God Himself.
A while back, whilst listening to Sunday Night Live, I heard Beechy talking about how much focus he was putting on the Word of God in his life—he told the audience that he had a Bible in every room in his house. That level of commitment to the Word changes the way we view the world, and it means we get to live hope-filled lives even in the midst of all the chaos.
As we all begin to emerge from fifteen months of repetitive lockdowns and life being so utterly different, we have a choice about what type of world we will inhabit going forward:
Will we emerge into a world where social media, 24-hour news, and Amazon adverts shape our existence and choices?
Or will we emerge out of the last fifteen months with a renewed determination to live for the ‘Audience of One’, letting the Word of God shape our thinking, whilst looking to Jesus for the life that He promises, properly focussed on being the person that He always designed us to be?
The life that Jesus wants for you and for me will never just accidentally fall into our laps. Jesus intentionally offers us His Life, and we must intentionally accept it.
As I have said before, victory is always in the choosing! And that is a bit of a life motto for me.
Image Credit: Kalyan Chakravarthy
