On a past date night I went with my husband to see Dunkirk. (Ahem, I don’t recommend this as a date night film. I spent the whole film in a state of hyper-vigilant suspense. I am requesting a date night re-do.)
The next day, during a quiet time with God I heard him asking me to consider the different behaviors of the people in the film who were in “survival mode” and contrast them with others who were displaying acts of heroism.
Without spoilers, those who were merely “surviving” displayed crippling fear, aggression stemming from self-preservation, despair, territoriality, blame, and some were so traumatized they had ceased to function.
Those who were acting heroically, on the other hand, whilst still afraid, exhibited a completely different set of behaviors and beliefs. They moved toward danger without much thought for self-preservation, they responded to need with everything that they had no matter how small it was, and while they were aware of the panic and despair around them, they didn’t allow the decisions they made to be influenced by them. In short, they continued to believe in miracles. They never gave up hope. Watch the film and you’ll see what I mean.
Of course, there was a point to what God was asking me to think about. I realized that survival mode had crept up on me, and I was hunkered down looking out for number one. He led me to repent of places in my life where I had stopped believing for a miracle and had lost sight of hope because I was unable to access the comfort of the Father. Thankfully God always has an answer for survival mode….
What can heroism look like in a global pandemic?
I’m realizing that heroism looks quite different in the current crisis than it has before, at least in my living memory. “Heroism” looks a lot less like an individual dash into the line of fire and a lot more like boring (let’s be honest) days at home. Those of us who thrive on risk taking and a bit of danger are reluctantly recognizing that staying home to protect others is what is required of us right now.
For some of us this can be difficult. It is easy to thrash around looking for a way to individually impact the situation to assuage our feelings of helplessness and insignificance. This desire to make a difference isn’t wrong, but right now, for most of us, it isn’t what is most needed. Heroism means letting go of our individual desire to make an impact, because the problem is far greater than any hero can face alone. This has actually always been the case, it is just more visible now. We have always needed each other far more than we like to admit.
In this season, heroism means that those of us designed by God to be leaders, lead in humble submission to the needs of our elderly, our vulnerable, and the relatively small number of healthcare workers worldwide. We step off our platforms, leave our offices, stop all our important hustle and bustle, and go home. Our role is one of submission, as part of a larger, corporate entity (a nation), to a plan that doesn’t require anything from us but volition and obedience—no grand heroic gestures, no striving.
So we surrender our grand plans and our desires to save the world in a thousand different ways and we personally diminish to strengthen collectively. There is a death to self in this for some of us, there is disorientation, there are empty churches and stadiums. There is less adrenaline, less affirmation, more solitude, more mundane.
In times of crisis it can be the tendency of those of us in ministry to think we need to somehow draft in behind all the pain and chaos around us and “deliver” God in a palatable and winsome way to our neighbors. (Not that we ever “deliver” God—as U2 frontman Bono says, “Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.”) While there are times when this is truly needed, it isn’t what I think God is saying right now. The current problem is too big for us—we are utterly undone by it—and only he can work the redemption and bring the remedy to all that ails us. This is a time to drop to our knees in humble recognition that we have nothing to offer this problem in ourselves. Only the mercy of God can fix this.
For now, our task is to love our families and our immediate neighbors well, to stay connected to people as best we can. In some ways we have never been more “local” as we refocus on those closest to us: family, next door neighbors, our street. This is a reorientation for many of us whose lives and ministries span people groups and geographies. We find ourselves with an invitation to re-encounter people and places we thought we knew. How are our families really doing? How is God at work right under our noses? Keep in mind that as we are re-encountering our neighbors, they are also re-seeing us in the light of crisis. Are we hiding our areas of vulnerability and fear, or are we taking this opportunity to humbly share our own deep need for Jesus?
Finally, we have an opportunity in this time to invite God to reveal and heal the parts of us that may have switched into “survival mode.”
To abandon our alignment with fear, despair, cynicism.
To resist the urge to disconnect, self medicate, and numb out emotionally.
To confess our urges to stockpile or fortress build.
To sit with our need to assign blame and criticize our leadership.
To humbly allow ourselves to grieve and lament.
To recognize our need to “package” this situation, to understand it rationally to reduce its emotional impact on us (which can also look like over-spiritualizing it!).
To acknowledge our tendency to deal with our fear and grief through control.
To confess our anger and disappointment with God.
To acknowledge and get help for our broken family systems.
God wants to attend to all of these things in us during this time.
In this time of pause we have been given an incredible opportunity to open our deep places of pain to the ultimate Doctor. After all, there is nothing quite like a global pandemic to reveal shaky structures and foundations that need shoring up. It is this deep work that will be needed when our doors can finally open to each other again. We will need to be present enough to mourn, peace-filled enough to be creative, secure enough in our own provision to be able to be generous.
When the world comes knocking at our doorstep, traumatized and lonely and confused and in need of the comfort and healing only God can give, will you be able to give it? Can you receive it now so that you can give it away when the time comes?
I encourage you to ask God if there are places in your life where you are hunkered down and barricaded or even aggressively protecting yourself. Let him reveal your vulnerabilities—you are really only safe with him anyway. Read the books, get the accountability, Skype your therapist (if you don’t have one, get one). Eliminate, while you have the chance, anything that might prevent God from working through you. While this current time may feel like the storm, for many of us, our act is up next. The world needs what you will receive from heaven in this time. And if you need a highly stressful visual prompt, go watch Dunkirk. (But not on a date!)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C’havala Crawley lives in West Sussex and works with Novo’s Ethne collective helping individuals and communities catalyze prayer and gospel movement in the UK and beyond.