We are often afraid to move into new things. Change frightens us because of the new difficulties that it inevitably brings to our lives. Just think of the many different ways this is true in our lives. Moving house, moving communities, moving countries, moving jobs and careers, etc. The first thing to note about all of these is that it involves a movement away from where we have been to where we want to be. The very fact that movement is part of the equation tells us that change is inevitable as we journey through life's varied and often difficult terrain. In the journey of our lives we face difficulties and many of these become giants in our imagination or high powered storms that prevent our access to what we believe to be our future. It is we that have to struggle in the midst of such storms in life and with the giants of our imagination.
In the story that is beloved by many, David faces a giant that opposes the Israelites (1 Sam. 17:32 - ff). A giant that has grown in all proportions so that their courage and their faith is challenged making them lose heart (1 Sam 17:32). This is a story of courage and faith. Courage to face our deepest fears and faith to understand that if we do not stand against those things we fear we are automatically dead, so to speak. Our fear when facing the giants in our lives and in our communities is often due to our lack of faith not only in what we can actually accomplish but also a lack of faith in God. God did no create us for God's amusement in our failures but rather so that we can become more compassionate and loving. In order for us to become more compassionate and caring we have to overcome our own doubts, our own hesitancies about our abilities. It takes somebody of great courage and trust to step out and face the giants of our modern era, those things that we fear to confront and conquer because they overwhelm us. We build that courage and trust by placing ourselves in the hands of God and follow in Christ knowing that they will guide us with their Spirit.
Christ appears so calm in the face of the storm (Mk 4:38), fast asleep without a care in the world. Our approach to storms in our lives is to be more like the disciples in the boat, facing the storm with fear which ultimately leads to panic. Many of the storms we face our created from our own self doubts. We are unable to face down those things that terrorise us and in our moments of weakness allow the issues we are facing to become increasingly greater and out of control. Christ understands this and faces the fears by rebuking them which of course the struggling disciples find awesome. A rebuke is a facing down of what is feared so that we can handle the situation. It is facing our fear and not allowing our weakness dictate how we live our lives. In a recent tweet Rachel Botsman (@rachelbotsman) points out that the essence of trusting ourselves is that ability to sit in the presence of doubts and uncertainty in order to learn and eventually grow. This is often an ongoing theme in MMORPG and the LitRPG books that are often spawned by or spawn them. The understanding that we grow from what our uncertainties and fears teach us.
In approaching our future, not only as individuals but also as faith communities we also need to come to this understanding and follow David and Christ with courage to face our fears of the future and our doubts as to our abilities. One of the giants of our time, which continually raises its head in some form or another, is the continuing and ongoing presence of intimate family violence, commonly known as domestic violence. We like David need to approach this giant of behavioural monstrosity and cut it out from our communities. The Anglican Church in Australia is at the forefront with the issue of a recent report and challenge to us as a faith community(https://anglican.org.au/our-work/family-violence/). Like David we take it one step at a time, preparing and facing, as it is a giant that we can conquer if we allow ourselves to face the fear we all have that there is little we can do. In facing our future as a community we also have to sit with our uncertainties and trust in ourselves, as well as in God's saving presence to guide us in facing our doubts and fears. It is only when we do this that we can say as the murdered priest, Luis Espinal, wrote "Train us, Lord, to fling ourselves upon the impossible, for beyond the impossible is your grace and your presence; we cannot fall into emptiness. The future is an enigma, our road is covered by mist, but we want to go on giving ourselves, because you continue hoping amid the night and weeping tears through a thousand human eyes".
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