The fire flickered as it danced around the shiny metal bowl, casting a soft glow on our feet as we sat in the yard. The warm fire on one of the first cool nights of autumn was just what my soul needed. We spoke words but not too many and felt a settling of the heart and mind I haven’t known in quite some time.
The simplicity of night, fire, and conversation with a friend began to unravel a certain kind of anxiety that has become more common in my journey than I’d like to admit. The speed of life, difficult remembrances of loss in days gone by, and too much connection with too little depth seemed to crescendo this week in a symphony entitled, “all is definitely not well with my soul”.
That’s a tough thing to admit in a world where it sure seems like everyone else is doing so well. Rationally I know that we are all struggling, but the mechanisms for presenting ourselves to one another do not lend themselves to authenticity. Instead, our virtual and in person common spaces for connection are “mask only” venues where the only safe way to enter is to cover with a false self and pretend that you are fine.
This is an exhausting way to live and frankly it’s wearing me out. I need more fireside chats with friends. I want to drop the act and just be real. I want to be seen, heard, and known without judgment. I suspect most of us want these things.
But wanting to drop the pretending we are fine act and finding a safe way to do that aren’t the same thing. It’s a dangerous thing to lower your shield when arrows are flying at your chest. In this world, the arrows are real. People are unkind. Life is painful. And we are afraid.
The longing to uncover, be real and vulnerable, and show up as our true selves requires courage, but it also requires an alternative strategy to deal with life. We catch glimpses of a different way around the fire with friends. In those brief moments of real connection we imagine that maybe life could be fuller and we could be more present in it. The trouble is those moments are fleeting and if we are honest we don’t know how to keep them at the center of our chaos.
There’s good news though. I’m writing it to say it out loud for those who have never heard it and to repeat it for myself and others who have forgotten. Here it is. Life is hard and you are broken. But God is love and he made a way for you to be whole. Jesus says both of these truths talking to his friends, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
There are a couple of important things to note here. First, the thief is Satan. He is the father of lies, the deceiver, the enemy of God and humanity. His objective is to “steal, kill, and destroy.” He steals our joy, kills our hearts, and destroys our hope. And he does it through the common things of the world – the pace of life, where we are convinced that our value is in what we produce; social media, where we are told that people only love our posed life; and the overwhelming false narratives of the world that convince us there is no reason that our losses and pain will ever make sense.
The second significant point that Jesus makes is that God acted so that we could have a way out of the tunneling, spiraling, gut wrenching anxiety that life lived on its’ natural course produces. The way out isn’t a do more, get better, pull yourself out of the pit strategy. Instead Jesus says that the way to the life we long for is to simply trust him. He promises that all who lay down their broken strategies, see him, and choose to come to him in faith, will find the rest we all long for. This isn’t the kind of rest we find after a good sleep. Instead this is the sort of deep down, stop striving kind of peace living that we only catch glimpses of around the fire with friends.
I’m longing to be whole and I suspect you are too. Jesus is inviting us to trust him. I’m taking a risk and laying down my mask. I hope you will too. And I hope to sit around more fires with friends in the days to come.
Gabriel K Smith 