(William Pitt)

Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you… So Abram left, as the Lord had told him.

[The Lord] protected them and cared for them, as he would protect himself. Like an eagle teaching its young to fly, catching them safely on its spreading wings, the Lord kept Israel from falling.

‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’… ‘One thing you lack,’ [Jesus] said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. ‘We here,’ [Peter] said, ‘have left everything to become your followers.’ Jesus said, ‘I tell you this: there is no-one who has given up home, brothers or sisters, mother, father or children, or land, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive in this age a hundred times as much — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and land — and persecutions besides; and in the age to come eternal life.’

God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The inheritance to which we are born is one that nothing can destroy or spoil or wither. It is kept for you in heaven… This is cause for great joy, even though now you smart for a little while, if need be, under trials of many kinds. Even gold passes through the assayer’s fire, and more precious than perishable gold is faith which has stood the test. These trials come so that your faith may prove itself worthy of all praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

(Genesis 12:1 and 4, NIV; Deuteronomy 32:10 and 11, GNB; Mark 10: 17, 21 and 22, NIV; Mark 10: 28~30, NEB; Psalm 46: 1-3, NIV; Lamentations 3:22 and 23, RSV; Philippians 4:6 and 7, NIV; 1 Peter 1: 4-7, NEB)

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‘Our watchword is security!’ Thus proclaimed the eighteenth-century Earl of Chatham, William Pitt. It is not difficult to imagine a scene in which this confident assertion might have been made in a stirring speech to parliament. Was Pitt making a policy statement on behalf of a political party in a time of national vulnerability, or was he boasting of some military or commercial success? Was it an optimistic cry of determination, or an expression of a vain hope? The context has been lost, so we can only speculate these two centuries later. But somehow we can resonate with these words: our watchword is security, too.

Security is that which keeps us untroubled by danger or apprehension, safe against attack and confident concerning the future. And, deep down, most of us search for it. We long for predictability, reliability, stability -most of the time anyway, even if we are ardent seekers of adventure. We prize the notion that we should be able, by careful planning and good fortune, to survive the vagaries of life that will inevitably buffet our small corner of the world somehow, some time.

We tend to go to great lengths to procure whatever security we can. We lock our houses against burglars to make sure we do not lose what we already have, and we insure our possessions and our health — and even our lives — just in case the unthinkable should happen to us. We set aside financial resources for our retirement, old age or just a ‘rainy day’, and fret about the effects of unpredictable interest rates and stock market volatility on our investments. We hold tightly to our jobs, even if they are not lucrative and prestigious, because they are a symbol of our future well-being. We search for meaningful relationships that we hope will provide support and comfort for whatever joys and sorrows life brings us. And we hope, perhaps against hope that, whatever politicians and super-powers may decide to do, our community, our nation and our world will not crumble beneath us.

Sometimes we have, paradoxically, to lose our security before we can find it. Perhaps we suffer some deep loss — a person, a marriage, employment, health — and our once-comfortable lives become suddenly insecure, unpredictable. It is at such times that we have special opportunities to take our eyes from what the world considers to be the basis of security to renew our vision of what God sees as the basis of security: ‘Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear… Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?… Seek first [your heavenly Father’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’ (Matthew 6: 25, 27 and 33, NIV). In times of prosperity and contentment that may sound like glib, idealistic advice, but in times of adversity and hopelessness there is nothing else worth clinging to.

Our watchword is security — the security of knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God and the completion of his purposes in our lives and in the universe.

In our production-orientated society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered…

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More enslaving than our occupations, however, are our preoccupations. To be pre-occupied means to fill our time and place long before we are there. This is worrying in the more specific sense of the word. It is a mind filled with ‘ifs’. We say to ourselves, ‘What if I get the flu? What if I lose my job? What if my child is not home on time? What if there is not enough food tomorrow? What if I am attacked? What if war starts? What if the world comes to an end? What if…?’ All these ‘ifs’ fill our minds with anxious thoughts and make us wonder constantly what to do and what to say in case something should happen in the future. Much, if not most, of our suffering is connected with these preoccupations. Possible career changes, possible family conflicts, possible illnesses, possible disaster and a possible nuclear holocaust make us anxious, fearful, suspicious, greedy, nervous and morose. They prevent us from feeling a real inner freedom. Since we are always preparing for eventualities, we seldom fully trust the moment.

It is not an exaggeration to say that much human energy is invested in these fearful preoccupations. Our individual as well as communal lives are so deeply moulded by our worries about tomorrow that today hardly can be experienced.

Henri Nouwen, Making All Things New

Happy the ones, and happy they alone, They, who can call to-day their own: They who, secure within, can say, ‘Tomorrow do your worst, for I have lived today.’

John Dryden, ‘Horace’

Jesus does not respond to our worry-filled way of living by saying that we should not be so busy with worldly affairs. He does not try to pull us away from the many events, activities and people that make up our lives. He does not tell us that what we do is unimportant, valueless or useless. Nor does he suggest that we should withdraw from our involvements and live quiet, restful lives removed from the struggles of the world.

Jesus’ response to our worry-filled lives is quite different. He asks us to shift the point of gravity, to relocate the centre of our attention, to change our priorities. Jesus wants us to move from the ‘many things’ to the ‘one necessary thing’. It is important for us to realise that Jesus in no way wants us to leave our many-faceted world. Rather, he wants us to live in it, but firmly rooted in the centre of all things. Jesus does not speak about a change of activities, a change in contacts or even a change of pace. He speaks about a change of heart. This change of heart makes everything different, even while everything appears to remain the same. This is the meaning of ‘Set your hearts on his kingdom first… and all these other things will be given you as well.’ What counts is where our hearts are. When we worry, we have our hearts in the wrong place. Jesus asks us to move our hearts to the centre, where all other things fall into place.

Henri Nouwen, Making All Things New

Contemporary culture is plagued by the passion to possess. The unreasoned boast abounds that the good life is found in accumulation, that ‘more is better’… Furthermore, the pace of the modern world accentuates our sense of being fractured and fragmented. We feel strained, hurrifled, breathless. The complexity of rushing to achieve and accumulate more and more frequently threatens to overwhelm us; it seems there is no escape from the rat race.

Christian simplicity flees us from this modern mania. It brings sanity to our compulsive extravagance, and peace to our frantic spirit… It allows us to see material things for what they are — goods to enhance life, not to oppress life. People once again become more important than possessions. Simplicity enables us to live lives of integrity in the face of the terrible realities of our global village…

Turn your back on all high pressure competitive situations that make climbing the ladder the central focus. The fruit of the Spirit is not push, drive, climb, grasp and trample. Don’t let the rat-racing world keep you on its treadmill. There is a legitimate place for blood, sweat and tears; but it should have its roots in the call of God, not in the desire to get ahead. Life is more than a climb to the top of the heap.

Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity

To the Christian, the quest for success in certain areas can be hazardous. The pitfalls are many and the temptations to sin, subtle. in our culture so much emphasis is placed on material things that it is easy to think of success only in terms of money, possessions, power or prestige. But is this all there is to success? Should the search for achievement be confined to them? Should not the Christian also think of being successful in those qualities of human existence that have eternal value? It seems to me that we can only satisfy our deep need for fulfilment by being successful in honesty, charity, patience, spirituality and the development of desirable personality characteristics.

Archibald D. Hart, The Success Factor

When I reached El Aboid Sidi Seik for the novitiate, my novice master told me with the perfect calm of a man who had lived twenty years in the desert: ‘ Il faut faire une coupure, Carlo.’ I knew what kind of cutting he was talking about and decided to make the wrench, even if it were painful.

In my bag I had kept a thick notebook, containing the addresses of my old friends; there were thousands of them. In his goodness God had never left me without the joys of friendship. If there was one thing I really regretted when I left for Africa, it was not being able to speak to each one of them, to explain the reason for my abandoning them, to say that I was obeying a call from God and that, even if in a different way, I would continue to fight on with them to work for the kingdom.

But it was necessary to make the ‘cut’ and it demanded courage and great faith in God. I took the address book, which for me was the last tie with the past, and burnt it behind a dune during a day’s retreat. I can still see the black ashes of the notebook being swept away into the distance by the wind of the Sahara.

But burning an address is not the same thing as destroying a friendship, for that I never intended to do; on the contrary, I have never loved nor prayed so much for my old friends as in the solitude of the desert. I saw their faces, I felt their problems, their sufferings, sharpened by the distance between us.

Carlo Carretto, Letters from the Desert

Sometimes you need to feel that you are lost, sinking, desolate, alone, if you want to feel for sure that God is there, hands holding you even in your mini-hell… I do not recommend hell, not even a mini-hell, to anyone. Hell, anyone’s hell, hurts too much. So if you can feel God in your mini-heavens of all-rightness, be content. But there is a chance that you may have to make your bed in hell, some time, and you may feel as if you had fallen there before your time, alone, helpless, everything gone wrong at the core, instant God-forsakenness.

If you do, or when you do, you may, as I did, feel God closer to you than when everything was heavenly. God is there, ahead of time, before you get there, waiting, hands open, to hold you when you are sure you are sinking. You will feel his presence, feel his strength, feel the courage that comes from his support, if you just let him hold you. And when you do feel him, you will know that it will be all right with you, at that moment, later, or any time… You will know it, too, when you feel yourself falling out of reach of the human hands you need, falling away from them and landing in God’s hands. You will feel, at bottom, that no-one but God himself is holding you and you will know that, in spite of everything, it all is right with you.

Lewis Smedes, How Can it be Right When Everything is all Wrong?

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O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home: under the shadow of thy throne thy saints have dwelt secure; sufficient is thine arm alone, and our defence is sure.

Isaac Watts

Lord, you are my constant companion. There is no need that you cannot fulfil. Whether your course for me points to the mountaintops of glorious ecstasy or to the valleys of human suffering, you are by my side, you are ever present with me. You are close beside me when I tread the dark streets of danger. And even when I flirt with death itself, you will not leave me. When the pain is severe, you are near to comfort. When the burden is heavy, you are there to lean upon. When depression darkens my soul, you touch me with eternal joy. When I feel empty and alone, you fill the aching vacuum with your power. My security is in your promise to be near me always, and in the knowledge that you will never let me go.

Adapted from Leslie F. Brant, ‘Psalm 23’

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A Benediction

To him who is able to keep you from falling, and to bring you faultless and joyful before his glorious presence — to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might and authority, from all ages past and now and for ever and ever! Amen.

Jude 24-25, GNB

>From Rowland Croucher ed., High Mountains Deep Valleys (Albatross/Lion),

chapter 7