This post concludes the Heading Out or Holding On series with some final thoughts and observations on dynamic stability. If you are not familiar with the concept you can read an excerpt HERE from Thomas Friedman’s book “Thank You for Being Late” which introduced the idea to me.
At the conclusion of my previous post I wrote: I have chosen to head out. Making that decision has not exempt me perils of the journey, ie rapids. Dynamic stability becomes relevant to those negotiating rapids or riding a bicycle.
Having failed as promised in my previous post, my next post will explore dynamic stability in more detail and what it looks like for me negotiating the turbulent waters of these days.
The events of 2020 and now 2021 have created a maelstrom in our lives. For many it has been like negotiating class 5 rapids. The past year has been exceptional, but reality is we often encounter rapids in our lives. The difference in the past year is we have been constantly fighting dangerous rapids with little or no relief. It is difficult to maintain stability in such circumstances. The lessons of dynamic stability can be helpful keeping one stable, assuring survival when difficult times are encountered.
No matter if you are kayaking rapids, riding a bicycle or following Jesus, holding on is not a viable option. To do so assures failure. Holding on is an intuitive response to fear. Kayaker, fearful of whitewater drags his paddle and is quickly overturned. The youngster learning to ride her two-wheel bike, propelled by a starting shove, fearfully drags her feet and falls. Life circumstances overwhelm a Christ follower, consumed by fear, he doubts and grasps his bootstraps.
Confronting fear is key to maintaining stability in dynamic, rapidly changing or unexpected circumstances. For kayakers and cyclers fear is overcome by training and confidence through experience. Understanding and employing counterintuitive principles of paddling and peddling to maintain momentum builds confidence. Ultimately their survival depends upon self-discipline.
Life’s rapids are “…a never-ending series of moral challenges and choices. And you don’t get a moment off. There is no halftime or time-outs. Act or refuse to act, each decision determines your destiny, the moral arc of your life. The darkness is always close at hand, and we fight it off, hour by hour” [Beck], self-discipline will not sustain us.
Life’s challenges are a fearful reality. At this point, Christ followers should rightly proclaim the answer to fear lies beyond us, an infinite loving God whom we can trust to save us. Unfortunately, our disenchanted age renders God irrelevant, making Christ followers’ proclamation nonsensical to the disenchanted.
Christian’s proclamation is further diminished when Christ followers grab their bootstraps rather than trusting God with our fear. Grabbing our bootstraps, holding on, occurs when we co-opt prayer, spiritual disciplines, worship, pietistic actions as means to our own ends rather than tools to engage God. A biblical illustration, that comes to mind, is the people of Israel’s fearful impatience which prompted to them to worship a Golden calf (Ex.32). Doubting God’s promises they chose to worship false gods.
Like it or not, living life is about navigating dynamic waters… from gentle ripples to raging whitewater, There is no turning back. We can never know for sure what we will encounter around the next bend in the river. The challenge is maintaining stability when we hit the whitewater. If faith is an abstraction, it will not suffice in times of crisis. Confronted by undeniable reality, we desperately grab for a life preserver, what we trust the most…ourselves. In doing so, our fears are confirmed, we cannot save ourselves.
Fear is the enemy of dynamic stability. Fear takes hold when reality strips away illusions of immortality, invincibility, infallibility and self-righteousness. Gut wrenching fear overwhelms when we realize we cannot save ourselves. This is the malaise of our secular society, God has been removed and all we have in His place is ourselves. Confronted with our inadequacy and God’s absence, fear dominates our lives.
Sometimes [fear] can have no face at all. If it is successfully avoided, it leaves almost no trace of its presence. And so those of us who are good at avoiding our sources of fear may come to conclude that fear has no part in our story. But we are mistaken. Fear—though not experienced—is still present and a source of bondage. (*)
Maintaining stability when encountering life’s dangerous whitewater depends on our response to fear. It is my belief that fear can only be overcome outside ourselves… through an infinite, transcendent God who created us and loves us.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18 NKJV
Such belief does not, as Timothy Keller said when faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis, “…automatically provide solace in times of crisis. A belief in God and an afterlife does not become spontaneously comforting and existentially strengthening. Despite my rational, conscious acknowledgment that I would die someday, the shattering reality of a fatal diagnosis provoked a remarkably strong psychological denial of mortality. Instead of acting on Dylan Thomas’s advice to “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” I found myself thinking, What? No! I can’t die. That happens to others, but not to me. When I said these outrageous words out loud, I realized that this delusion had been the actual operating principle of my heart.
Death is an abstraction to us, something technically true but unimaginable as a personal reality….our beliefs about God and an afterlife, if we have them, are often abstractions as well.
I realized that my beliefs would have to become just as real to my heart, or I wouldn’t be able to get through the day. Theoretical ideas about God’s love and the future resurrection had to become life-gripping truths, or be discarded as useless.
I know what my head says:
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
The question is are they real to my heart?
Still on the journey