Over a year ago last March, many ministers rapidly learned new skills, totally altered their work flow, timetables and 'output' to try to meet the needs of their people in a lockdown.
I had to explain this today to a farmer in a livestock mart who thought I'd probably been pretty much on holiday during Covid ... I told him what I now get up to every day and he changed his mind a bit!
For many of us, it's not just the we weren't very tech-savvy, but that we didn't have the sub-skills or cognitive abilities out of which to assemble technological competence and (to mangle an old saying) if you ask a fish to climb a tree ... he'll find it tiring!
I'm certainly not putting a case out here for the particular pressure Ministers are under ... so many of us, in all manner of lines of work, found ourselves working much longer days during lockdown.
But then a few months back, the government in Westminster seemed to decide that enough was enough and COVID could go away now, so they started to dismantle the lockdown ... but the Minister's work patterns are not going back to the old normal and hybrid working for us now means catering for people still living in virtual isolation using all the new ways of working we've developed AND returning to the old pattern of work alongside that.
Can you see what's happened there?
There is now an expectation from one part of the people we serve that we will maintain all the online and innovative stuff we pioneered through lockdown.
Simultaneously from the other part, there's an expectation to return to producing the old programmes alongside the new pattern of provision permanently now all the time.
Most of us were crash-busy before ... but now?
It's akin to demanding bricks without straw, is that!
It's asking for what's beyond human strength.
And humanity can only manage so much.
It was into the most demanding of contexts in the 700s BC that God spoke prioritising down-time with HIM.
Through Isaiah the Lord spoke like this:
“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
- He does not faint or grow weary;
- his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord
- shall renew their strength,
- they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
- they shall run and not be weary,
- they shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:28-31
https://www.bible.com/2016/isa.40.28-31.nrsv
The prophet speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit headlines his message with the contrast between the LORD and His people:
The LORD is the everlasting God and Creator of the ends of the earth ... He is STRONG enough to be putting in a shift (as Isaiah says) without either growing physically faint and weary OR running out of intellectual capacity through exhaustion.
And, as if arising from that, Isaiah explains that this tireless, all-powerful Creator is different in this respect from the strongest of His human Creation ... because even YOUTHS and THE YOUNG run out of steam, but the remedy for that lies in waiting for the Lord (Who, we've just been told, doesn't).
Waiting for the Lord
The Hebrew word for 'Wait' used here covers
- hope (with its Biblical dimension of certainty)
- waiting (akin to 'patience'), and
- resting (that is, trusting)
The form of the original language points to those in whom this relationship (of hope, patience and trust in the Lord is consistent and constant.
The outcome of waiting for the Lord
- shall renew their strength,
- they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
- they shall run and not be weary,
Renewed strength ... a different strength which is not natural, as if people could grow wings and fly high.
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