Episode 104 - Driving Each Other Up the Wall

This week I drove a car for the first time in 19 months. The last time I drove I was driving back from the clinic in Papua New Guinea for them to look into whether or not the little jerks I got occasionally were anything to worry about – I even got pulled over by a police man, don’t worry, it was just a routine check. I have to say, getting into the driving seat I was quite nervous, but everything went very well, I didn’t even get pulled over by the police! Beforehand I was worried that I may have forgotten some things or lost my driving instinct but it all came straight back to me. It was just like riding a bike – except with very different pedals and a steering wheel instead of handle bars. 

As I was getting my confidence back, I couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that everyone else driving around me had no idea about my circumstance or experience. I was just another faceless driver to them. And likewise, so were they to me. They could be having the best day of their lives, or their worst. And I wouldn’t know. They may have just been given a promotion – or the sack. They could be on the way to the hospital, to visit a new born relative or a dying one. Or they could just be having a really normal day. Should I treat them any differently depending upon how their day has been? Yet truthfully it seems only fair to have more patience with someone if they’re having a bad day. Should my ignorance to their circumstance be an excuse to my lack of patience? 

It’s easy to dehumanise the other drivers on the road, but I fear that I can be just as flippant with the humanity of all the people I meet during a regularly day. It’s easier not to consider them as people so as to excuse my cold behaviour towards them and even at times allow me to pour out my frustration towards them. And yet allowing myself to feel negatively towards them does nothing to lighten my burden or to cheer my mood. Strangely however, if I stop just seeing the retail worker or the postman or the cold caller, but instead see; Dave the guy who’s just started a new job, or Lucy who’s been walking for three hours in the pouring rain, or Mike who’s got a poorly little girl at home who he’s worried sick about, then something changes inside. Because we’re all people, we all have our frustrations and problems, just as we can all be frustrating and all make mistakes. And so I feel less inclined to feel frustrated and impatient towards them and more likely to feel compassion towards them. The negative feelings that slowly gnaw away at me are replaced with love, which actually feels pretty nice. It changes how I behave outwardly, but it also changes how I feel inwardly and it is without doubt I who benefits the most. I will never know the half of what is going on in the lives of those who pass me by, but I won’t allow that to be an excuse to discount their humanity.

Episode 103 - Unboxing the Past

This last week I have started going through old boxes of my things that my parents have lovingly kept in their garage for years and years and years. Amongst it all there were a few boxes of stuff from when I was in school, mainly books and projects. As I went through it all I found memories coming back to me that I didn’t even know I had. Nothing very solid, just glimpses of the person I had been. To be honest I wasn’t the most street-wise or socially aware of children, in fact in many ways I could be quite naïve and ignorant. I remembered (not too clearly) some interactions with my friends where looking back, I wished I had behaved differently. I can’t help thinking that they must have been hurt by my actions even though I was totally unaware of it. I really do wish that it had happened differently. And yet I remember no fallout from those incidents, and looking back through the evidence in my boxes it’s clear that we were not only friends afterwards, but that they cared an awful lot about me too.

It makes me feel very grateful for those friends. It also makes me realise how easy it is to regret mistakes we make in our relationships with other people. I know that there have been many times that I’ve worried that I should have done something differently or responded to something better. But looking over these things, I can see that whilst it would have been better if I’d had followed a different course, in the long run it really didn’t matter, and worrying and wishing has never changed anything (although a good apology can be worth more than gold). My friends have never loved me because I didn’t make mistakes, but they’ve loved me despite them. I’ve always been blessed enough to have friends who understand that my mistakes don’t define me but rather what I define as mistakes determine who I am. Perhaps I need to start being a little easier on myself when I mistakes and see it as an opportunity to make them shape me into who I want to be.

Episode 102 - Three Cheers for the Class of 2018

On Friday I had the privilege to be at my old college as the degree students who started when I started my short course nearly three years ago had their graduation service. It has been amazing to be back with them again, having fun just like we did when I was studying there. Being back again, it was impossible not to think about the two and a half years that had passed since I finished studying at All Nations. It’s strange to think of what I had imagined my future was going to be and then to compare it to what is now. It could be easy to think that I had planned so much but find myself exactly where I was. But of course our plans are not always God’s plans, as it says in proverbs; in his heart a man plots his course but the Lord determines his steps, and God’s plans are always best!

Also, it would be wrong to say that I am in exactly the same place. Yes, the buildings are pretty much the same, the atmosphere is as electric as ever and I’m surrounded by many of the same amazing people, but those same people are not the same as they were. They still have the same unmistakable characters that made them who they were and define who they are, but they are different. They are more. The last three years has changed them. Shaped them. Grown them. Taught them. And I am so incredibly proud of them, not just for getting their degrees, but for who they are. And not just them, but me too, I am not the same. God has changed me. My classes may have looked a little different but I have had the same God shaping me. With God there is no going back, only going forward, even when He takes you back to where you have been before.