Against The Flow

Day one = a loaded canoe trailer + 16 people + a drive to the take-out + a challenge. That was the formula used for the afternoon of my very first full day as a member of the 2018-2019 Loft team. Wendell, our leader, instructed us to get out of the van and unload the trailer. Then he shared with us the challenge that he had crafted. We were to attempt to canoe upstream from Simpson Park to the covered bridge which is back on Messiah’s campus. Our first task was to assign paddling partners. We lined up according to our canoeing experience and basically folded in half so that the most experienced person was with the least experienced, the second most experienced was with the second least experienced and so on. Then we put on the water. We fought our way up against the current frequently having to get out and pull our boats through the really strong flow. We would paddle forward two strokes only to be pushed down stream about half a boat’s length. As we paddled, we passed other people enjoying the water and they heckled us. We got past the first rapid and continued to fight. As we were nearing the second rapid, a storm blew in. It was the type of storm where you feel like you are directly under the lightning and the second you step outside it looks like you jumped into a swimming pool. We knew that we could not stay on the water any longer, so we started looking for a place to wait out the storm. On one side of the river there was a home with a large, open back yard lined with no trespassing signs. On the other side, there was a high bank with thick foliage. We chose the latter as our escape. All 16 of us climbed up the muddy bank and took up spots away from the stream. We waited nearly an hour on that shore, completely drenched. We each coped with our discomfort differently. Some people sang, others worried, a few of us, myself included, wanted to finish the challenge, and others recorded a nature explorer video on a cell phone. Once the storm let up enough for us to feel like we could get back on the water, it was no longer safe for us to continue toward our goal. We decided to return to our starting point and head back to campus. This challenge was intended to frame our theme for the year: go against the flow. We spent our weekly meetings exploring what it means to go against the flow of culture as followers of Christ. Looking back on this challenge, I can’t help but see the clearest picture of what it means to go against the flow.

At first, the 15 students thought that Wendell, our leader, was asking us to do something unreasonable. He told us to canoe against the flow of the current. This doesn’t make sense. Canoeing up stream is ridiculously hard. Canoes aren’t designed to perform this task, and furthermore, we hadn’t even been through canoe training yet. As Christians we are asked to live differently than what is normal in culture. While culture tells us to make money so we can be happy, Christ teaches us that we must give to those in need without expecting anything in return. In Matthew 5: 40-42, we are called to give freely of what we have. In verse 44, we are instructed to love our enemies and pray for them. This is very much not what culture would have us do. If someone does something that hurts you, it’s your right to get even with them. Our court system is set up to favor this approach that we call justice. Culture teaches us to seek out our own comfort and enjoyment. Every time I drive into Pennsylvania, I am greeted with a sign that says, “Welcome to Pennsylvania, pursue your happiness”, but as I read about the life of Christ, I don’t see him putting any sort of value on his own comfort or happiness. Matthew 4 outlines Jesus going into the desert to fast, which is automatically an uncomfortable situation to be in. The tempter offers to ease his discomfort. This is what Satan does to us, too. He identifies when we are uncomfortable and provides some sort of immediate fix that will feel good.  Eating, for example, to alleviate your hunger is not bad, but in the context of Christ fasting, it would distract him from why he was fasting. Satan likes to offer us things that are not inherently wrong, but when they distract us from our greater purpose, they become stumbling blocks. It doesn’t make sense to go against the flow because it’s hard, but it is the right thing to do.

The second part of my canoeing adventure that jumped out at me were the responses that we got from other people who were out enjoying the creek. They struggled to understand why we were going up stream. They would make comments that felt like personal attacks against our intelligence. They gave us a hard time because we were doing something that was different from what was normal. This should happen to us as believers. John 15: 18-19 explains that we will not be accepted by the world if we are truly living as followers of Christ. I believe this is because our lives should confuse those who are not walking with the Lord. The way that we live should threaten the status quo because it does not conform to the norms of the world. When we choose to play by the rules given to us by God, societal structures are threatened and therefore we will be rejected.

Sometimes going against the flow leads us into a storm. We are forced into situations that are out of our control. It’s in those moments that we lean into those around us who are also fighting against the flow. When we were stranded on that shore in the midst of a torrential downpour, we got to care for each other in amazing ways. Those of us who were more comfortable in the storm stepped up and encouraged the people who were not okay. That storm became a formative event in the life of that group. It drove us into deeper relationships with each other because we were all vulnerable together. Coming out of that challenge, we had a new sense of camaraderie because we had suffered and survived together. In life, when things feel out of control, kind of like storms, we need people around us that we can lean on and suffer with. Those people give us the courage to weather the storm. Often, we come out of the storms deeply connected to those individuals. We need to be a part of Christian communities as we choose to go against the flow because storms are coming and without allies, the storms can be unbearable.

Going against the flow is hard. When you decide to set out on the adventure that is a life in Christ, we don’t know what will happen. Every day might be a battle to keep moving forward. You might be met with resistance from those who conform to what is normal and you might find yourself in the middle of a storm fearing for your life. Regardless of what challenges you face, you will not be alone because when we choose a life in Christ he is with us.