I thank God that I’m living the life I was meant for: Christian Viewpoint By John Dempster
The book Living His Story which our church has recommended, has a wonderful sub-title: Revealing the extraordinary love of God in ordinary ways.
It was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury for reading during Lent 2021.
The author, Hannah Steele, director of St Mellitus College, in London, issues a call to Christians to share with others their faith in Jesus, and the difference that faith has made.
Trouble is, I find the book triggering. It recalls pressure I felt as a young Christian 40 years ago to get out there and “be a witness”. I believed and still believe in the good news that we are loved more than we can ever know by the God who comes to our rescue, but shyness and introversion meant that having conversations about this was simply not me.
There are great things in Hannah Steele’s book, which combines deep examination of how Jesus and his followers interacted with people with contemporary stories of people finding faith. I love her understanding that evangelism is not something you do to people: it is, rather an appropriately expressed invitation to meet the Jesus you have encountered.
I love her focus on God’s love, God’s whispers in peoples’ hearts prompting the longing for more, our role as Christians simply to nudge others along on their journey.
I remember my guilt-driven, unanswered prayers as a young man for transformation into a better kind of Christian – less introverted and shy, less troubled by doubt and unanswered questions, more passionate about Jesus. But there were no answers.
And I now realise that this is the story I have to tell. A story of entrusting myself on my clearer-seeing days to the boundless love of God; a story of inner promptings and insights which I believe are God-given; a story of moments when joy and love break through, bringing healing and wholeness.
I wish Hannah had acknowledged that doubt, and unanswered questions, are often an integral part of Christian experience, and that many of us mature in faith by learning to navigate uncertainty. I wish she had recognised that not all of us are called to regularly talk to people about Jesus. There are other ways of expressing the good news: in art and music and poetry, in creativity of all sorts, in honest, faith-shaped written words like these.
What encouraged me most in Hannah’s book was a quote from a theologian about the early Christians. Each of them, he says lived “the life that particular witness was meant for, and which the witness now lives out as a gift received from Christ”.
I know I am living the life I was meant for, and I thank God for it.