Reflecting on Paul's letter to Timothy, Mark Berry helps us remember that our faith in God doesn't guarantee a life of no problems and failures. But what we do have is far more valuable...
Paul begins his letter to Timothy, his mentee and to whom he was extremely close, even thinking of Timothy as his “true son in the faith”, by remembering the tears that Timothy has shed. Paul reminds Timothy of the two great women who walked before him in the faith, in difficult times, and of their steadfast faith. He tells Timothy that he has no doubt that he shares the same strong and sure faith.
He tells him how much he longed to see him again, and just how much joy that would bring. But Paul was writing from the great discomfort of a Roman jail cell. He and Timothy hadn’t seen each other for around four years, and Paul was probably aware that it was highly unlikely that they would actually see each other again.
The reality must have weighed heavy on Paul’s shoulders, not only because he loved Timothy and missed him but because he knew that his impending death would be deeply painful for Timothy.
“For this reason”, Paul seeks to encourage Timothy by reminding him of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete - comforter and healer, the one who gave Paul himself the confidence and strength to endure the harsh hand of the Romans. The same Holy Spirit who turned the cruel punishment of the cross into a moment of reconciliation and rebirth.
Fear not that the world may call us failures, Paul says, do not be ashamed of our stories, for the world does not understand!
Twenty years ago I visited the Houston Space Centre. I wanted to buy my young son a T-shirt, but all the T-shirts bore the NASA motto, “Failure is not an option”, and I just could not bring myself to convey that message to my son. The irony of NASA using this motto, is that it has been in moments of “failure” that some of the most creative thinking had emerged.
During the Apollo 11 moon landing, as the astronauts were putting on their portable life-support-system backpacks to undertake their walk on the moon, one of them accidentally knocked off the tip of a circuit breaker. This controlled the power running to the engine that would blast them off the moon.
“Aldrin, being an engineer, he looked at the opening where the circuit breaker had been and realised that if he could insert something there, he could depress the button that had broken off,” writes Robert Pearlman. Aldrin looked around until his eyes fell on a soft tipped marker, using the body of the pen he was able to press the circuit breaker in, closing it, making it possible for them to return home.
The success of the Space missions did not rely on there being no problems or failures, but the creative thinking and determination of the crew to be able to overcome seemingly impossible challenges.
The gift of God which Paul writes about from his prison cell, is not the gift of an easy, successful or even joy filled life, but the strength to embrace the struggle, and even the suffering that not conforming to the standards of the world may bring. To keep going by the power of God, when the world and even the church seems against us, not because of stubbornness, but because there is a greater purpose, that of Love, of Shalom.
So as we head into Summer, now is a time to fan the flames of the Spirit, to refocus on the transformational call of the Gospel and to embrace whatever may come our way with steadfast faith, trusting in the power of God.