Nick Fawcett (devotional and reflective writer)

With Lent just around the corner, here’s the introduction from one of the sessions in my Lent study book Stop and Stare (see here for details of other study books). It reminds us just how important it is to take time out sometimes from the hustle and bustle of life; time simply to be still in the presence of God.

What is this life, if full of care …?

‘Full of care’ – does that describe you? Strangely, if there’s one malaise that could be said to characterise modern-day Western society, it’s probably exactly this, as testified to all too eloquently by the waiting lists of numerous GPs, psychiatrists, counsellors and other therapists. We seem to be burdened as never before by pressures, worries, fears and phobias, countless people being close to buckling under the strain of it all. Most, though, are understandably reluctant to admit it. After all, we in the West are the lucky ones, fortunate enough to have a standard of living that most of the world’s population can only dream of. What right have we to feel troubled or careworn? Surely we should be thankful for our lot, greeting each day with celebration rather than anxiety, and rejoicing in our plenty? There’s undeniably truth in such an argument, few of us having any idea of what it means to suffer real hardship, yet, for all that, the prosperity and material comforts many of us enjoy have been bought at a price: the price of inner tranquillity and contentment.

Just why that is and what we can do about it is the subject of this book, and will be explored in more detail in subsequent sessions, but here I want to consider further the nature of our cares, asking how best we should approach them. Some may be specific, including, for example, broken relationships, bereavement, health worries or financial insecurity; others may be harder to pin down, ranging from a sense of insecurity to phobias to depression; others again may ‘merely’ be the weight of life’s daily demands and responsibilities – a sense that there’s always something to be done, a schedule to fulfil, a deadline to meet. More likely, we find ourselves facing a combination of these, wrestling, as it were, on several fronts.

So how do we respond to such troubles? A typical approach is to indulge in frantic activity, almost as though through keeping busy we can keep our cares at bay. Don’t stop, we tell ourselves, or that problem will catch up with us and drag us down. Stay occupied, get our head down, and we’ll somehow muddle through. For others the response is very different. They feel paralysed by their worries, increasingly unable to face anything, so they turn in on themselves, retreating ever deeper into their lonely private world. Either way, cares build up until they exert an unremitting stranglehold, squeezing the joy out of life until there seems little left worth living for. I’ve seen it happen all too often, fears and anxieties stealthily taking over until each day is lived under their shadow and all else is obscured.

So what else might we try? A possibility that may surprise you is suggested to me by the well-loved hymn of Johnson Oatman, ‘Count your blessings’. That, of course, is excellent advice in itself, for simply listing our reasons to be cheerful can go a long way in helping us see past our problems. But I’m thinking here along different lines: of counting our cares. That too can be useful, not with a view to morbid introspection but simply as a way of getting things into perspective. Objectively identifying our troubles can help us face them, for we see each then for what it is, rather than allowing them en masse to become a nebulous dark cloud that hangs menacingly over life.

With our cares, however, we don’t just need to ‘count them one by one’; we need also to tackle them one at a time. It’s impossible to overstate how important that is. None of us can do everything at once, and the more we try to juggle, the more likely we are to make a hash of things. Don’t try to put everything right in a day; face your problems one by one, and let that be enough. That’s essentially what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Do not fret about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Let the problems of one day be sufficient for themselves’ (Matthew 6:34). And that’s just one of many passages we could turn to that promise help or hope to those wrestling under a weight of care; that remind us he cares about our welfare, shares our sorrows and bears our pain.

Do we have more troubles today than in times past? No. We have only to pause and consider what people have endured across the years, and what millions still endure, to realise how fortunate we are in countless ways. But that’s not to say life doesn’t bring its trials, for of course it does. None of us are immune from sickness, suffering, trauma or tragedy, and some experience those more than others. Faith doesn’t downplay such trials for a moment. Rather it offers God’s promise of strength and support, the assurance that whatever we’re called to face he will see us through it. But it calls us also to consider our cares in a new light, asking whether they’re all as real as they seem. ‘Do not be anxious, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” But seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God, and you shall be given all of these in addition’ (Matthew 6:31, 33). In other words, don’t fret about what’s unimportant – the trivia that we daily magnify out of all proportion. Don’t get sucked into the rat-race, the endless cycle of wanting ever more, of climbing the ladder, of keeping up with the Joneses. Focus on what truly satisfies, on what God daily provides, and many of our troubles will suddenly melt away. Take that thought with you into the coming week, and live each day in that perspective, for as the poet rightly says, ‘What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?’