Sowing your own defeat

Dr Iain Jamieson July 21, 2019 0 0

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Amos 8: 12 (NIVUK)

12 People will stagger from sea to sea
    and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
    but they will not find it.

So when did our swagger become a stagger? 
Once upon a time a man called Martin Luther King had a dream.
Some people recorded it and other people wrote it down.
You should read it. You should give it a listen.
“I have a dream” he said.
Optimistic. 
What our world could be.
I don’t think anyone’s had a dream in a long time.
And if they have? I fear we’ve stopped listening.

The world has become a very noisy place, everyone shouting and increasingly the only messages getting through are the polar views: the strident certitude of the zealot. Radical atheists. Christian Fundamentalists. The far right and the radical liberalist. Everyone shouting, no-one listening.

In an argument, in a race, we’re told it’s either win or lose — no quarter given. When you win you are oh-so-certain you were right. A thousand voices cheering you on, who cares about the journey? Who cares about the strategy? Who cares about anything but this ever present winning? All you hear is cheering.

And what if you lose?
Deafening crushing silence.
Heart pumping, blood rushing.
For what?
A thousand voices fallen silent. All you hear is nothing.
When everything is just win or lose, when the stakes are so high. How can the winner even look at the loser and vice versa. 
When things are binary however, the chance of being a winner or a loser will always be a coin flip.
There are 2 sides.
But it’s just the one coin.
I think we’ve lost sight of that.
One coin.
Amos says they were searching for the word of God “but they will not find it.”

We are all searching for the word of God; we are all searching for the truth but to find it, to hear it, we need to talk to each other.

When you are the loser you have to listen to the winner or you will never understand winning and you will always be just half a coin. Worthless.

When you are the winner you have to listen to the loser or you will never understand losing and you will always be just half a coin. Worthless.

We need to be one coin and then, perhaps, we will be worth something.

Prayer:

Lord I lost that race.
I wasn’t prepared enough?
I wasn’t passionate enough?
I just wasn’t
Enough?
But you saw me,
Ran with me
And reminded me 
In winning
In losing
In you
I am

Enough.