When you’re weary & feeling small, it’s context for when you’re feeling tall

Bridge Over Troubled Water was a smash hit for Simon and Garfunkel way back in the 1970 — (fifty years ago, can you believe it?) — and it isn’t difficult to understand why.  It plucks away at our heartstrings, because it taps into those emotional centres that are always open for transaction.  Think about rain for a moment when we we’re inside.  There’s something strangely comforting about rain when we are safely inside.  It’s completely the opposite situation when we’re out in the rain, out in the elements, feeling lonelier than ever, so it’s just as well that as we ponder the comfort of being dry and warm inside, we are also reminded of the care of God in being safe.

And yet there is a classic irony in all of this: without the concept of being caught in the rain, feeling completely exposed to the elements, there would be no concept of safety out of the rain in the cosy and dry environs.  It is the same with courage.  We have no need of courage unless we are fearful. Without scary circumstances there would be no need of courage.  When we have a plentiful supply of water, it’s so easy to be dehydrated because we take it for granted, and yet we only need to be in different circumstances, without it in hot conditions, and we see how critical for life functions it is.

When we received some rather bad news recently, a new friend from my son’s school, Martina, a life coach and prophet who had drawn alongside, was an encouragement to me when we were uncertain.  She reminded me of the body ministry we all get to play in lifting others up.  As we shared a laugh within the bigness of life, not sweating the small stuff, I was reminded of what I’d been contemplating.  God is good, and something better was coming.

When we are most vulnerable, we come to be most thankful, because we see the provision of God in the glory of wonder, through the power manifest not least in weather or famine or drought or disease, to name just a few.  As the rain pounds down, or as wind gusts rush furiously by in a gale, we are reminded of how small we are, and this need not be a bad thing.  Indeed, it is the opportunity to be humbled in the powerful presence of a creator God far bigger and more powerful than our restricted comprehension.

God is such a caring Creator to have brought us into being, and we exist here, in this life, in a Psalm 139 kind of way.  To rightly imagine God, we need to hold in tension these two opposite ideas: the sheer size and majesty of this awesome being that cannot be reckoned with, complete with the concept of the inherent caring and benevolent nature, a concept equally awesome and unparalleled in its majesty.  This ‘both-and’ thinking construct is necessary to more fully grasp God in the most human way.

Life can be incredibly scary, and there is no life that hasn’t been exposed to all of the elements at once.  It makes us appreciate the bigness of God.  It also heralds the idea that we are granted safe passage through the majority of life, and even if we have been harmed significantly, there is respite and sanctuary, eventually, where we come to truly appreciate those people and situations that help us feel safe.

When you’re weary and feeling small,
when life is teary and you feel you’ll fall,
remember your Creator holds you,
when you’ve got nothing left to give,
and you don’t know how you’ll live,
just hold fast to what and who is true.

Feeling weary and feeling small are both very human capacities of emotion.  If we’re not pretending to live some kind of fake life, we will feel estranged to God’s care from time to time, and yet isn’t it ironic that it’s in the context of these times we truly appreciate God’s care?  If it weren’t for the harm we were exposed to, we would not fully appreciate the safety that we enjoy today.  Bears thinking about.

Not that we would ever thank those who bring suffering into our lives, but all the more can we thank God for the safety we enjoy in having been carried past tyrannies beyond imagination.  The more darkness we have been exposed to, the more we may appreciate the light.

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash