LIFE PRESERVER THEOLOGY
I was off Instagram for a very long time simply because it was not very “desktop friendly”. To post any pictures from my desktop I had to actually go into the developer settings and convince Instagram that I was posting from a mobile phone before it would accept it. It just seemed more work than it was worth. So I sat it on the “cybershelf” for quite a while.
But I logged in to Instagram the other day just to see how it was going and found it is now much easier to upload image files from my desktop. Not only that, but I could share what I upload with my FB page as part of the upload process. Two birds, one stone and all that.
But then came "the question". Being a Christian writer/poet/image creator, etc. was it going to be worth the effort? How many would it reach? How many would even bother looking at anything I upload? Would I reap nothing but a load of laughing emojis? A brief scrolling through the postings on Instagram was quite depressing. Post after post of dodgy backyard actors “paying back” on “bullies”. Staged pretend "clever" bag snatches. Staged prank pulls, dodgy “in your face” arguments, “flirty flicks”, “watch, waaatch, keep watching, any minute now, just keep clocking up the watch time, manufactured suspense” videos, etc. All with very high “like” counts. Anything more real, more important, more serious, more meaningful, getting a few likes here and there. Anything remotely Christian lucky to even get “like” numbers in the double digits.
The inevitable question creeps stealthily into the slightly ajar backdoor of our mind. Are we really here “doing the Lord's work”? Are we really “fulfilling the Lord’s mission”? Are we really “being led by the Holy Spirit to share our faith”? Or are we simply deceiving ourselves? Are we just being distracted from the “important work”? Are we simply being self-indulgent? Or worst of all, are we being “silly fools” for thinking we have anything worthwhile, or of any interest, to share? Are we an “insignificant nobody” deceiving ourselves into thinking we are a “significant somebody”?
The honest truth is we all ARE insignificant nobodies. BUT we are the “insignificant nobody servants” of a very significant and important somebody! And a good and faithful, even if an insignificant nobody, servant does whatever their significant master asks of them. Even if it seems silly and foolish to them. They are serving HIS purposes, and HIS will, not their own. ...
So why DID I call this article “Life Preserver Theology”? (apart from the fact that it sounds cool and intriguing and seems to have got you reading this far at least :-). Well when the above self-doubt crept stealthily in the backdoor of my own mind a vision, image, allegory, idea, parable, call it what you will, shouldered past it and summarily kicked it out and slammed the door in its face. So let me share that “mind’s-eye-picture” with you. …. Walk with me ….
So there I am in my mind's eye, talking to the Holy Spirit of God. He says, “So you want to save people? Have I got a gift for you!”. And He hands me a standard sized one of those doughnut shaped life preservers with a rope attached to it. “There are people out there in the world lost and drowning in a sea of illusions. Help Jesus save as many as possible”.
Then He turns to the person on my left and says the same thing. But He gives him a life preserver twice the size of mine. Then He turns to the person to my right, repeats the same thing again and gives him 10 life preservers.
Then He takes a step back and looking at all three of us says, “Why are you all still standing here? Go, help Jesus save as many as ….. you can”.
A few protests entered my head but never left my mouth. One does not win an argument with the Holy Spirit of God.
So off we go to save as many as we can. The first person we came to was drowning in a small pond surrounded by overhanging trees. The person on my right was still trying to figure out how he was going to fit through the trees with his ten life preservers. The person to my left tried to throw his double sized life preserver but it kept getting tangled up in the branches. But mine was just the right size to make it past the branches and rescue the person. That made me feel pretty good (and probably a little too smug).
But then we came to a lake where there was a young lady with child drowning and only the double sized life preserver was big enough to save her and her unborn child. That knocked a little shine off my smugness. But what came next trashed any remaining smugness. An inlet with ten people all drowning, and of course the person on my right saved all ten … in one go.
But any smugness they may have had also evaporated when we reached the top of the next hill. There below us lay a huge ocean … full of drowning people. And around the edge people of all different types, nations, colours, languages etc. busily casting out life preservers of all types, sizes , shapes and numbers, trying to save as many as they can.
Now none of us three had enough life preservers to make much difference but at least between us we had the equivalent of 13 life preservers to make A difference, no matter how small it might be. And then the eyes of the one on my right lit up in understanding as they noticed some on the edge only had bits of rope and some were using their bare hands to try and save people. Suddenly the one on my right realised why they were given ten life preservers and began to share them with those who had none. The one on my left realised that many were struggling to rescue the bigger people and those women with child and realised that is what their double sized preserver was for. What’s more they could double up with somebody who only had a rope and they could both share the work together.
As for me I realised that everybody around the edge was just like me, saving as many as they could with whatever they had wherever they were. And this was only those on this small shore line of a very large ocean.
But something else I noticed as I plied my one small gift trying to save as many as I could with it. There were some who ignored all the other life preservers nearby and grabbed on to only mine as if there was something mine had and they wanted or needed that none of the others nearby had. But what thrilled me most was seeing that sometimes when I pulled somebody in they were holding tight to somebody else’s hand and that person was holding on to somebody else’s hand. And sometimes my one little standard sized life preserver was able to save a whole line of people all at once. And sometimes it was even more than ten.
But what really bought tears to my eyes was sometimes looking over to my left and right and occasionally finding some of the people next to me helping to save others were people who I first met clinging on to my one little standard sized life preserver.
So here I am, standing firmly on the Rock of Christ side by side with all my brothers and sisters in Christ, using whatever gift, whatever opportunity, my Lord gives to me, big or small, to draw to Him those who are tired of just treading water till they die.
