Mountain Climbing

One of the things that Xander mocks me for mercilessly for is that I don’t tend to experience feelings of guilt very often. I don’t feel guilty when the house is a mess. I don’t feel guilty when I eat too much cake (mostly because I’m not convinced there is actually such a thing). I don’t quite know how I’ve managed to get through life with such an affliction (at its worst it manifests as lack of conviction), but I quite enjoy it. However, there is one particular Bible story that gets hits my guilt button every time.

During Holy Week we had vespers (I recently saw Vespers as a suggested baby girl’s name – if you’re thinking up ideas, don’t do it!). We sat and read through the Easter story together, sucking some of the marrow from the bones of the Holy Week story. There’s so much in there you can miss if you jump straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.

(our Holy Week prayer stations)

It’s just after the Last Supper and Jesus goes off to the garden of Gethsemane to sweat blood in the anguished decision of whether to go through with the crucifixion or not, and he asks his disciples to pray for him. He comes back only to find them all fast asleep, and says this verse that leaves a chill in the bones of every person who’s ever fallen asleep while trying to pray: ‘are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour?’ (Mark 14:37)

The guilt button gets pushed and all these doubts rush in: I don’t get up early enough to pray, I can’t stay awake, I can’t fit into my life all the things that need to get done. I just can’t… Jesus, don’t you understand?!

In a year of rest, a year of prayer, what do you do with that?

What God impressed on us this Easter was that to be able to watch and pray when Jesus calls us to, we need to rest when he calls us to. If we don’t rest now, in our Sabbath year, we won’t be energised, refreshed and inspired when he calls us to work.

So often we wear ourselves out doing the things we think we ought to do, when actually God is commanding us to rest, to stop, to connect with him, to learn when to say yes and when to say no. I’m reminded that when we say yes to something, we’re always saying no to something else. Learning to say yes to the right things, now there’s the challenge!

Recently I came across an illustration I love, which I think bears repeating:

A man went walking on a mountain, when he came across God. God asked him to take a cart up to the top of the mountain for him. The man agreed, delighted that he could be of use to his Master, energised and full of joy. He set off up the slope with a song in his heart and a spring in his step. Along the way he saw a friend, who asked if he could pass on a couple of rocks to take to the top in his empty cart. Wanting to do a good deed for an old friend, the man said yes. On he travelled, slightly heavier laden, but his heart gladdened by the knowledge that he was doing a good thing. On he went, collecting a few things here, a few things there. He got hotter and wearier, trudging up the mountain. He eventually sat down under a tree, feeling frustrated and more than a little bitter that God would do this to him, on a day when his only intention had been a jolly stroll on the mountain side. He started to complain to God, ‘this isn’t what I wanted, how could you do this to me?’ He was startled to hear God answer with a question in return, ‘what are all those things you’re carrying?’ The man started to explain, but didn’t get very far. God said to him again, ‘I asked you to carry the cart, I know your strength, I made you, I know what you can manage in a day. Now why is your cart so full and heavy? Such a burden I never intended you to carry.’ (Adapted from ‘Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World)

What does God have for us that we miss out on because we insist on carrying burdens that were never ours to bear in the first place?