Blog Yellek

Opressive heat. The heat that enfolds you like a smothering blanket from which there is no escape, nowhere to turn. It builds up gradually. At first you close the doors and windows as the temperature rises, keeping the cool in during the heat of the day and opening up at night when it is safe again, bringing some small relief. But day after day it continues, getting hotter and hotter. Every day despite your best efforts the temperature goes up just a little bit more. The afternoon sun beats down upon the thick outside wall, battering away at its protection like a relentless siege on some medieval city. A siege that the defenders watch in despair, knowing that there is only one outcome, knowing that the enemy will eventually breach their sanctuary. Little by little the temperature rises, 1 degree today, 2 degrees the next until only the promise that it is so much worse outside keeps you huddled in your insufficient sanctuary with the fan that only just keeps pace. You sit within enfolded in the heat that won’t let you go, trapped somewhere that used to be a haven, soaked in a pool of sweat in the hot night, trying to get some sleep and praying for the change that seems so far away.

Opression, opression of the spirit and soul. Opression that causes you to shut yourself in behind a high thick wall of protection in a vain attempt to keep the enemy out.

God made us. He made the heat and the cold. They are part of His creation. When we allow ourselves to be shut away, hiding who we are, the siege of the enemy only gets tighter and more complete. Our God is an offensive God. A God who doesn’t huddle behind a thick wall of protection but rather takes the initiative, opens the gates and rides out to defeat the enemy. No longer do the inhabitants of the city have to despair alone because there is a powerful champion who will take the fight to the foe and bring deliverance.

May the champion Jesus dwell in your city and be with you to fight the forces that surround you.

Over the break I had a chance to visit with my family over Christmas, to go and spend a bit of time, meet the new family dog, help Dad set up a new computer, to hang out in the kitchen over breakfast. Whilst I was there I invited a good friend over to my parents place for dinner, a friend who had left Adelaide during the year and who I wanted to catch up with to see how she was going in a new city. I knew that it was going to be an interesting evening, both my friend and my parents are mature Christians with many years of walking with Jesus behind them and I was looking forward to seeing how my friend was going.

The thing that surprised me was that in a few short hours my friend was able to ask my parents some penetrating questions and hear stories about their lives that I had never heard before. There were stories about when they first met, stories about being called into full time ministry, stories told in depth in a way that I don’t remember hearing. I was surprised to say the least. How could someone who was meeting my dad for the first time and who had met my mum only a couple of times be getting them to tell them stuff I had never heard? How well did I know my parents? Why was this happening? Was there something wrong with the way I was relating?

I’ve written before about familiarity. The things that you become so used to that they lose their power to affect you. I’ve come to wonder what hidden depths there are in people all around me that I don’t know because I have become too familiar with them. I wonder how often I let day to day routine blind me to the intimacy that I could have if I just dug a little deeper for it. I come to wonder what hidden depths there are in God that I don’t see because I don’t take the time to know Him deeply enough.

A few years ago I undertook what some would consider the great American road trip, driving 7,500 miles in 5 weeks in a big circle across the US. I started in Salt Lake City and went east, then south and then back to Salt Lake to finish. It wasn’t until then that I understood a short story I read in the September 1981 edition of Fantasy and Science Fiction by John Kessel called “Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!” which posits a dark future where the sum total of American self worth is measured by the highway miles that each driver completes travelling a world composed entirely of interstates. Travelling one day between Rapid City South Dakota and Des Moines Iowa I clocked up 800 miles (about 1290 Kilometres) in about 14 hours on the interstates including some sightseeing stops in Badlands National Park. For years I related anecdotes of that mammoth day in my hired Subaru Legacy thinking that in the country where the highway is king I would never equal that monster journey.

Until I moved to Adelaide.

Yesterday I set out from Sydney at 4:30 am and for the next 15 1/2 hours proceeded westwards to Adelaide, covering about 1350km in the process. I think I lost my love affair with the open road at about hour 15 yesterday when, with a pounding headache, squinting through insects from 3 states into the setting sun and vague from staring at the white lines for far too long, I attempted to negotiate the steep descent on the South East Freeway down the Adelaide Hills back home. I made it safely (Praise God!) but I couldn’t help thinking I was just a little crazy. Still, I mentioned it to quite a few people at work today to show what a hard core long distance driver I was. Madness.

What is it about the male of the species that causes us to take silly risks and endure hardship for the sake of a casual boast?