Pick up something that is valuable to you. I worry that at this point many of you have reached for your mobile phone. Whatever it is, grip it tightly in your hand. What would happen if you were to hold onto it that tightly for a long time? Well, I expect two things would happen. The first is that after a while, it would begin to hurt. Secondly, at some point you are going to have to make a choice. You might need to get some food to eat or maybe your spouse, child or a close friend will come into the room and you will instinctively want to embrace them. You won’t be able to do that whilst holding onto the phone so tightly.
There will be many things that matter to us. I’ve used this illustration before to show how we can hold onto priorities, ambitions, material things tightly at the expense of the Gospel. However, actually we can hold onto a lot of spiritual things tightly too. The risk when we do this is two-fold. If we hold too tightly onto anything, even a doctrine or interpretation that, yes, may well be important, but, no, is not of first importance then we may find that it ends up causing pain. Others get hurt, often the most vulnerable because we hold tightly onto x or y and miss that we are meant to show love and care to them, to value them, to allow them to use their gifts. Not only that but also, we often end up coming away hurt and bruised ourselves.
It’s okay for us as Christians to care deeply about things. Here on Faithroots, there are lots of issues that I have written about. On some I have clearly held views. However, that doesn’t mean I should hold onto them tightly. In fact, there are only a few things I really want to hold onto tightly. In the end, that comes down to holding on tightly to the Gospel, to what Jesus has done for us, who he is to us and the hope we have in him. If I’m going to hold onto those things tightly and help others to as well, then I’m going to need to hold onto other things a little more lightly.
Faithroots 