Feeling secure?
Finding personal security in our identity as a child of God, rather than in our role or other relationships
“I don’t think I’m completely OK at the moment.”
That is what I wrote to a friend recently. Our family is facing some difficult things that have affected my mental state.
As I spoke more with my friend and a pastoral support worker from our mission, it became clear that one of the key reasons I was finding things difficult was my work situation. We had changed churches two years ago and there were various things that changed in how I worked. I realised that much of the security I felt, or didn’t feel, in my work as a missionary was closely tied to the amount of interaction I had with people I viewed as work colleagues. In a church context, that includes my pastor and also other people from the congregation that I interact with regularly.
Who or what do I rely on for security?
This has made me ask the question, how much do I actually rely on the Lord Jesus for my security rather than on the people he provided for me? Perhaps to be more precise, did I say that I relied on Jesus without thinking it through and applying that reliance to my work life as a missionary?
This Japan Harvest issue is looking at mental health, and it seems appropriate that I’m looking at our security as disciples of Christ, something that has a profound influence on our mental health for ill or for good.
When we come to Japan as missionaries, we set aside various things that helped us feel secure. In day-to-day life, there was family, employment, government supports and other services. Supporting our work as Christians, whether paid or voluntary, were churches and denominational structures, perhaps employment and vision statements we could understand, and the interactions with co-workers on a regular basis. Sometimes we don’t even know we needed or liked having those structures until we arrive in Japan. Some are replaced by new structures, but it can take a while to get used to them and we often understand them much less.
So it has been a little surprising that only in my ninth year as a missionary here, I’m realising how much regular people-contact in a workplace, or at Bible college, or church was an important support structure for me. In my case, this realisation was delayed because I could speak Japanese from the start, having grown up as a missionary kid here.
One big difference between Australia and Japan is how much people are available during the week to meet. Midweek small groups and meetings in Australia are normal because usually people can finish work by early evening. In Japan, I am involved in church ministry, and many of the people I might minister to work long hours during the week. The pastor we work under is also busy and I don’t share a workspace with him. I’m also not an official staff member at church, so it can be hard to meet people from church incidentally.
Ways God cares for us
It is important to point out here that our brothers and sisters are an important way that God cares for us. In my case, I need to keep meeting up with people, in small groups and one-on-one, because it is one way God cares for me. Others in this issue have written about various aspects of self-care that we should put in place. It’s also important for me to acknowledge the need to keep deepening my dependence on the Lord Jesus, separate to my relationships with other people—to live as one whose security is in the Lord.
The first thing that helped me when I grappled with this issue of security was the reminder that we are first a beloved child of God. Jesus has died for us so that God can lovingly embrace us as his son or daughter. It has helped me better understand that God loves me and wants to care for me in a specific way. Building on that was seeking to apply what it means to abide in Christ. John 15 speaks of the Lord Jesus as the vine and us as the branches in a vivid metaphor for our relationship.
In my case, re-examining my habits of spending time with the Lord Jesus, daily, weekly, and monthly, has been valuable. My pastor recommended Peter Scazzero’s The Emotionally Healthy Leader, and that has challenged me to be more deliberate about how I structure my life around the Lord Jesus so that I am abiding in him.
It is still very much a work in progress, and it has been painful. But it has been good to realise how the Lord is using a specific episode in my life to teach me to abide in him more deeply, confirming that my security indeed comes from him.