The language of “snowflakes”, as used to describe disoriented and disillusioned young people, has always struck me as unhelpful and unfair. When a generation feels that many of the props or foundations that once provided security and hope have been kicked out from under them it is unsurprising that levels of anxiety are high. The message has been loud and clear that you can be anything you want to be, that the only important thing is to be yourself, that you can self-ID (and that is only and exclusively a positive thing), but the experience is that meaningful work is harder to come by, relationships of depth have been replaced with internet-enabled short term flings, youth-debt levels are massive and family structures and role models have been systematically demolished for many.
We shouldn’t be surprised at backlashes. It is entirely understandable if people search for meaning in rage, activism. Valuing comfort and safety when we are scared, confused, manipulated and feeling the world is stacked against us is only to be expected. If people want insulation from hard reality through safe spaces and trigger warnings is that not relateable? If they seek safety in in-crowds or escapism into fantasy, can we not sympathise?
I suspect the coronavirus is going to make all of us who wouldn’t have thought of ourselves in the snowflake category a lot more sympathetic in the months to come. If we thought that we were more psychologically resilient to global instability, it only takes a few extra props and foundations to be removed from our lives to find that we were only marginally more secure than vulnerable teens. This dawning of reality, however unpleasant, just possibly might have some positive affects:
It might make us more sympathetic to the heart cries of people we have previously thought just need to pull themselves together and learn to be a bit more resilient
It might make us realise that the mechanisms we use to bolster our sense of safety aren’t as worthy of our trust as we have always imagined them to be. When we base our lives on brittle foundations it only takes a strong enough blow for them to crumble
I am very sympathetic to people who want comfort and safety when the world is falling to pieces. My question is about where that comfort and safety are found, and it isn’t in safe spaces and trigger warnings. Those are just a well-meaning but inadequate attempt to insulate from distress or an exit ramp into living in denial.
The real safe place is that the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they are safe (Proverbs 18:10). When God exiled most of his Old Testament people from Jerusalem to Babylon, some of those who managed to remain in Jerusalem started to consider themselves safe. They said “this city is a protective iron pot and we are the meat” - the elites, the ones who endured, secure in our iron-walled city (Ezekiel 11). God responds by saying not only that he will throw them out of it, but that his presence and protection are actually with the exiles, destitute, insecure and far from home. The veneer of safety was not going to save the smug Jerusalem elites. Only the presence of God was going to do that.
How can we experience the name of the Lord being a strong tower that provides safety in these terrible times? Far too early this morning my young son crawled into my bed, pulled my arms around him, murmured “nice and warm” and snuggled his whole length against me as closely as he could. In my half-asleep state I was thinking that is a good picture of what God wants us to do. Jesus told his disciples to remain in him, and thereby in the love of the Father, so that his joy may be in them and their joy may be complete. He says the way to do that is by his word remaining in us. We dig his word as deeply into our lives and hearts as we can, we thereby remain in him and we are thereby safe in him and in his joy. And the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Its easy to think this isn’t a practical answer to all the insecurities we are facing. That a practical answer involves figuring out how we can have a job, continue to get food, not get sick from the virus. Surely those are the important questions, not how to be secure in God? These things are indeed extremely important. But they are not ultimately important. Nor are we actually in control of them. Romans 14:17 says that the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is, there are greater desires and greater security even than things our bodies need to live. And those things are righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The first Christians threw away all their desire for comfort even when they were being killed because of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. People are beheaded around the world today rather than renounce Jesus - because of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Our lives adorn the gospel when we are captivated by the Kingdom of God - righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
And it is properly comforting. Not that life is not massively disoriented and disorienting, but because we are ultimately safe. We are comforted in trouble, not just by the absence of it. True comfort is a by-product of secure faith and fixing on the glory of Jesus. Don’t think this is just a platitude. If you’ve read my last couple of blogs you know how much I am feeling disoriented and in need of real, practical, genuine comfort right now. A very wise friend reminded me as I am writing this, that the critical thing for Marcus, as a person and as a leader, is not that I have to be in a good place, super-strong Marcus, a mighty leader for people to hang on to. The vital thing is that we can be weak hangers-on to a super-strong saviour and, maybe, encourage others to do it together.
How can we maintain ourselves in this? I think it is a matter of snuggling in. Of reminding ourselves daily in scripture, prayer and worship of the mighty fortress that is our God, of committing our ways to him, of counting ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus, of being real and honest with God about our fears, and of learning to trust his grace, mercy and provision. The rubber really hits the road when we ask the question “is God actually going to care for me, really?" Or do I have to sort that out for myself with him as some kind of immaterial sky-fairy for some additional emotional security?” My need - all our need - is for confidence in the Lord that is not surface-deep. His sovereignty over the big and small has not changed. He is completely in control of world-changing viruses and of all the events of my small life, and of the way the large-scale global stuff affects the small-scale personal stuff.
A good start would be to use the virus as a spur to dig deep into one of the gospels. To meet Jesus again there. To turn everything we discover about him into worship. Maybe to take some of the great prayers in the New Testament and pray them. Perhaps memorise them. Basic things like this are what press the reality of God deep into our lives by communicating his reality relentlessly to ourselves and others. Times like this reinforce how critical it is that we do not have a small, powerless God.