Saturday 7 May 2011

Was it love or fear of the cold

One of the Mumford and Sons songs has the following line in it,
'Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night'
which got me thinking about our motivations in life. So many friendships are based on fear of the cold rather than love. So we don't like the cold. We don't like feeling lonely. We don't like feeling alone. We are afraid of being alone and so this drives us into relationships. So many relationship groups are built around the questions of who's around and who's willing to be around so that I won't be alone. I remember this from the start of university. You start university and you're so scared of being alone that you just find anyone who is happy to spend time with you and you hang around with them - It's better than being alone. But these friendships don't last. You see your relationships need to be built on more than fear of the cold if they are to last they need to be built on love. So you get bored, you get frustrated, you start feeling lonely again and in the end you find people you like and you start building relationships out of love rather than fear of the cold.

The same thing happens with many people and Christianity. They start to feel alone. Either without a community around them or alone in the universe. They are scared of living without a community, without a framework to live their lives by, without anything above and beyond them and in Christianity they find these things. they find a community which will accept them. They find a framework by which they can live their lives and they find a God who is bigger and better than them. So they come into Christian community and become Christians. Now there is nothing wrong with this as a starting point however, if your Christianity is always motivated by fear of the cold then like human relationships it will not last. You will fall out with the people, you will find the framework frustrating and you will find God distant unless your motivation moves from fear of the cold to love. You see it's fine to be drawn to Christianity by fear of the cold but if it is to last your motivation must change to one of love. I see so many people who don't like their life, are afraid of their future and so come to Christianity for a while before at some later point drifting away again. Why is this?

Well I think it is because it was fear of the cold not love which led them to Christianity. Christianity which lasts is Christianity motivated by love for who God is and what he has done.

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