Challenging The Way Things Are

I am not a subscriber to the sentiment that talk is cheap.

I have a fair idea where it comes from. There’s a lot of talk about how bad something is without anything done about it. Politicians talk about what they will do to make things better. People vote for them and are disappointed to see that the talk is not backed by action. That’s not just an experience that is seen in the world of politics. Children can recall it of parents. Broken-hearted lovers can recount it as a reason for the end of the relationship. Those who walk with those who look to lift themselves from addiction can attest to the pain of the best efforts and sentiments faltering and seemingly going back to nothing.

But the talk is not cheap at all. On the contrary it’s cost can be felt in the disappointment, disillusionment, distrust and despair that comes out when there are no actions that back it or reflect it.

So when I write about challenging the way things are, I write about it as one who has actively contributed to that disappointment. People were expecting me to live up to a word I had said. I did not. Why should they ever trust me again. I had actively invested in their distrust and distance.

That should disqualify me from writing about the subject, right? Well, the thing is that if I were to get hung up on my failings and faults and focus on that, I wouldn’t write another word. As I have a Father who cares, He forgives me, cleans me up, disciplines me and sets me up to be the man of integrity He has faith to believe I can be. It’s one of the amazing aspects of Him being so faithful.

Which leads neatly into what I am learning more and more about what it is to challenge the way things are done. I find myself in at least three relational dynamics in which there is a certain way things are done and not all of it is good. What following Jesus is challenging me to do in addressing the situation is reminding me how Jesus did it. Which, funnily enough, involved talking about it. It’s just that He backed up His words with a demonstration of what He meant. Now He did this right in the circumstance He was challenging and by the time He was crucified it was clear that the status quo as a whole hadn’t really changed in one sense.

The religious rulers were still in their positions, the Roman rulers were unruffled. Wicked people remained wicked and people were still being exploited. Yet there can be no doubt that the status quo received a clear challenge. That challenge was reinforced by a community of believers who again talked about what was wrong, highlighted what was right and backed it up with demonstrations not just in miracles, but in relationships and communities that crossed cultural lines and expressed this life-changing love of Christ.

What I get from that is the importance of being bold and clear in presenting the challenge specifically to the way things are. Clear, because sometimes it can be easy to curse everything as being awful and seeing no redeeming aspects or qualities in the system. That is not always right or fair. So it’s important to be clear.

It’s also important to be bold, though, because there are those who would prefer it if you kept your mouth shut and just left things as they are. There are those who may very well agree with you, but for fear of upsetting people and turning them off, they would prefer to keep a low profile and just offer the occasional grumble here and there, but not actively look to rock the boat. Speaking up calls for boldness because not only may you be rocking the boat in some cases, you could even be helping passengers out by pointing out how the boat is sinking because of the hole of indifference and apathy we’ve allowed to take place on the vessel.

Yet the talk is really enriching and rewarding when it is exemplified by the alternative being presented. That’s the exciting thing for me – the pursuit of righteousness is the challenge to practice a way of life in the midst of the status quo that points to something better. It’s the practice of a lifestyle that suggests things do not have to continue the way they are. It says to onlookers without verbalising anything that all that was verbalised is not just fantasy or wishful thinking. It’s real.

Those lessons are ones I’m endeavouring to apply in the situations I encounter. It certainly requires the patience I might have mentioned recently. Ir certainly requires constant communication with the one who is the way, truth and life of abundance. It certainly requires ongoing filling of the Spirit that produces fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control against which no one can have an issue.

Experience teaches me that applying these can bring about not just the challenge, but slowly and surely it can bring about the change. When that happens, then not only will the talk prove not to be cheap, it will prove to be part of the enriching experience of life living in the change that comes by the challenge.

(Photo by Rupert Britton on Unsplash)

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden