Why Man Flu is Great (and why I don't need to prove myself)

I haven’t written a blog for a very long time – in fact as my brother pointed out today, this last few weeks has been the longest gap since I started it in Malawi. I would love to say that I’ve just been too busy, but looking back, I was always too busy to do this really this but I did it anyway – because I love it. Honestly, I think the reason I haven’t written anything for a while is because I haven’t had anything much to say! Not that nothing exciting has happened – lots of exciting things have happened. Since I last posted on here I’ve had one of the most epic experiences of my life: seeing one of my friends come to believe in Jesus, and getting to be there as he starts to enjoy Him. That has been an utter delight, and a ridiculous privilege – and it makes me grin and get excited just to think about it. I’ve also received a surprise visit from my girlfriend, started spending a unusual  amount of time on the roof of a bike shed, and become an expert in the manipulation of sock puppets. So plenty was going on, I just didn’t really have anything profound to say about any of it – but I’ve decided that it’s time to break through and write something anyway.

I want to write about something that I’ve known for a long time, but seems to be one of my favourite things to forget. It’s about proving myself.

It is exam term at the moment, so I have a lot of friends who are, shall we say, not feeling as zen as they might like. I am also not very popular this term, because us marvellous English students don’t actually have exams in first year. So what should be the case is that everyone around me is going mental and getting exhausted, and I’m just strolling around feeling chilled and peaceful, sipping on a can of Lilt. Sadly, what’s actually happened is that I’ve found myself with quite a lot of Shakespeare to think about, tonnes of rehearsals to be rehearsing in (that’s where the sock puppets come in), and many and various God-based activities to be doing. So much so, that by last Sunday night, I was genuinely really exhausted, and stressed, and I was definitely considering throwing a temper tantrum until someone brought me a time-turner. I also, ironically, felt guilty because I was supposed to be the one with no exam.

And then on Monday, I got man flu. And this man flu turned out to be surprisingly helpful. (Just to clarify, I don’t think that God mystically gave me a cold, but I think that He is exactly the sort of legend that will take anything, if we’ll let him, even annoying things, and turn them into something good. Like those people who make flip-flops out of old tyres.) The metaphorical flip-flop which God made out of my cold was basically this: it forced me to admit to myself and to Him that I was not actually capable of writing a brilliant essay, running several prayer meetings, having a spontaneous DMC with every single one of my friends, being funny with sock puppets for several hours, saving the world and getting some more milk from Sainsbury’s all in one day. I was obliged to abandon my semi-well-intentioned plan to do every single thing that God likes us to do all at once all by myself. Instead I switched to Plan B: do everything you actually have to do, and spend some proper, good time alone with God – then see what else you feel up to. And you know what? Plan B turns out to be pretty good.

The funny thing is though, that I’m still on Plan B, but I’m feeling quite a lot better now, and I’m actually back to doing pretty much exactly the same amount of stuff as I was before. But I don’t feel like I’m dying so much anymore. In fact, to extend the metaphor (as I love to do) I feel like I’m coming alive. And the differences are two things…

Thing One is that I’ve gone back to carving out time to enjoy God. That might sound a little bit silly if you don’t believe in him, but it is what I mean. Because the whole thing is pretty epic really – and by the whole thing I mean my current state of existence – in that God – as in ‘I AM’, the Creator and Holder-Together of the universe, the Epic Poet who spoke the stars into existence, the Author who invented us, the Craftsman who created us, the One True King, from of old, the Rightful Heir to the Throne of Everything – in that that God knows my name, and he smiles when he hears it. And even though I broke his heart but he actually likes me, he loves me to death. And I get to call him Dad, and he listens when I talk to him, and he does incredible things just to show me that he loves me, and the list goes on and on really. And since the man flu, I’ve been putting a bit more time and effort into enjoying that. Into reading about him, writing about him, talking to him, singing songs and doing silly little dances for him. Sometimes just being still and knowing that he’s right there with me.

And in that time, He’s started to remind me about Thing Two – and, as promised, it’s about proving myself. There’s a lyric in a song we were singing at church recently that starts to express it:

Jesus, you’ve nothing more to prove,
So what could separate me from your love?

(I love the attempt to make ‘prove’ and ‘love’ rhyme – tis pleasantly Shakespearean.) Anyway, I love the lyric, and it keeps on moving me every time I sing it. So then I was thinking about why, and this is my best guess…

I don’t just get exhausted because I do a lot of stuff. That’s why I get tired, but then there’s another type of exhaustion, something a bit deeper. And that deeper kind of exhaustion happens when I’m doing all this stuff that I do in an attempt to prove myself. When I’m doing it to try and demonstrate – mostly just to myself – that I really am a good Christian. That I really am ‘committed’. That I really do care about all the things I’m supposed to care about. That I really am following Jesus with my whole life. That I really am a good student. That I really am a good friend. A good boyfriend. A good person. To prove that I am who I think I am, that I am who I want to be. And that is exhausting. Like I say, not the things themselves – the things themselves I really love doing, they just get tiring if you do too many of them in one go without sleeping – it’s just this need to prove myself that eats me up.

And then I remember. I remember that Jesus didn’t say, “I’ll teach you the way to be as good as you need to be, if you’ll try hard enough, and then I’ll be pleased with you.” He said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I remember that he can give us rest because he has done all of the work that we needed to do. He has put in all of the effort, and he nailed it. And the pun there was unintentional, but actually quite relevant – because instead of taking all the glory, all the praise that he had earned for himself, he let people spit on him, and kill him – because he was saving that glory. He was saving that glory so he could share it with us. So that we can boast, we can glory – I love that verb so much – we can glory in how much he loves us, the what he thinks of us, in the names that he calls us. He calls us friends. He calls us brothers and sisters. He calls us children of the living God, and he tells us that he’s proud of us. Not because of all the impressive things we did today, but because we’re his kids now. I remember that he loves us because he loves us, and there’s nothing we can ever do to stop him. I remember the prodigal son wandering home, literally covered in crap, and the Father running out and down the street and wrapping his arms around him and beaming at him and saying, “This is my son!”

I remember all of that and I realise that I have got absolutely nothing left to prove. I know who I am, and it’s never going to change. He’s proved it to me. So I’m still tired, but I’m not so exhausted any more. And it’s really good.