Vicar’s article from the Bridge Magazine, September 2019
If you’ll forgive a small holiday boast, I was enjoying a cold drink in the poolside bar on our campsite in France, when I heard the news that Boris Johnson was to be our new Prime Minister.
I don’t know how you feel about his appointment, and this article certainly won’t tell you how to feel about it. I won’t be mentioning the Br**it word either, so please don’t accuse me of mixing religion and politics!
I’m also conscious that there’s a possibility that by the time you read this, Boris may be an ex-Prime Minister. But assuming he is still PM, one thing I have appreciated about Boris as PM is his optimism. Whether it was the pun in his first speech as Tory leader: turning the acronym DUD (Deliver, Unite, Defeat) into DUDE (by adding ENERGISE) or his first speech as PM when he rejected the “doubters, doomsters and gloomsters”, I’ve appreciated the government’s shift in tone from fear and “unfounded doubt” to hope and possibility.
The Bible has a great Proverb about fear and unfounded doubt,
The slothful man saith, ‘There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets’” (Proverbs 26:13)
It’s a proverb about how fear, worry and pessimism about the future, can paralyse us: there wasn’t really a lion in the street, the man was just worried there might be. Fear and unfounded doubt mean he stays in bed.
Sometimes these fears and unfounded doubts come from painful memories. One day on holiday, three of my older kids and I decided our beach-trip experience would be vastly enhanced by climbing the not-steep 40-foot cliff at the back of the beach, and like the fit young mountain goats they are, the kids were soon at the top. But I hung back a little, “to make sure that if any of them got into difficulty I could catch them.” Honest!
The real reason I hung back was that about a quarter of the way up, I had to stand on a small flat rock, get my balance, and then stretch out across a gap to the next bit of the cliff. As I stood there contemplating the stretch, I had a brief flashback to July 2003, when I lost my balance and fell off a similar rock.
Which brings me to a second Bible proverb,
Worry is a heavy burden…” (Proverbs 12:25)
My worries certainly were a heavy burden as I stood on that rock. The memory of falling made me so doubt my ability to stand upright, that I began to wobble, and nearly fell again.
Worry and unfounded fear weigh us down and paralyse us: in politics and economics; in business and the workplace; in our schools, churches and social clubs; and of course in our relationships. If we spend all our time worrying about what might go wrong, we’ll never get anything done. Indeed, worrying about things going wrong is probably the best way of making sure that they do.
Thankfully the proverb continues,
Worry is a heavy burden, but a kind word always brings cheer.”
A kind word is exactly what one of my kids offered: “Come on Dad, you can do it!” I laughed off the fear, made the step, and lived to tell the tale.
That’s why I’m enjoying Boris’ cheery optimism so far. It doesn’t mean everything he tries to do will be right, but his optimism and a can-do spirit mean he’s more likely to succeed than the doubters, doomsters and gloomsters. Please pray for him, and all our politicians, in the tricky months ahead.
Rev’d Barry Unwin