Surviving the storm – an allegory

I have an aversion to camping which stems back to my time in the Scouts. A series of flooded tents and deflating air beds combined with angular hips that press into the unyielding ground through an all too insubstantial sleeping bag convince me that if God had meant people to camp in tents he wouldn’t have given us narrowboats. A narrowboat, with its comfy bed, wood burning stove and a sturdy roof to keep out the elements is a far more congenial way to experience the great outdoors – and you get to travel places too without having to pack everything up each day.

One understanding that both tent and boat owners share is that for your accommodation to survive wet and stormy weather it needs to be well anchored; either tied firmly to the bank or pegged down with decent tent pegs – and not the flimsy sort that bend the first time they are biffed with a mallet either. The better and more numerous the anchor points, the more likely you are to wake up in the morning still protected from the elements.

I was asked recently to reflect on a passage from Isaiah 54 where the people of Israel, who are living as slaves in Babylon, are promised a different future under God’s protection. The verse reads: Make your tents larger! Spread out the tent pegs; fasten them firmly.
Isaiah 54:2 CEV.

It prompted me to ask ‘so what are the pegs that keep me anchored, that enable me to face an uncertain future with more confidence than I can conjure in my own strength?’

For me, there are five key pillars: the support of my family (especially my amazing wife Sally who daily goes above and beyond anything she signed up to when we got married), the prayerful and practical support of faithful friends, the connectedness that comes from being part of a worshipping community (in our case a church), the comfort that comes from being embedded in the community in which we live and lastly, the support of a dedicated medical team who understand the nature of my muscular dystrophy and can provide the specialist support when needed.

That is a big list, and grammatically it is a big sentence too! The fact is of course people can survive with far less, but if you don’t have the support of family and friends, if you haven’t invested in being part of a wider community, then the few pegs you do have are having to work so much harder to keep you firm and you are less able to withstand storms and setbacks.

It is worth therefore taking time to whittle yourself a few more pegs while the opportunity exists rather than finding yourself short when the storm sets in. Building relationships takes time and energy but the reward is immense. If I learned one thing from my time in the Scouts, apart from how to survive the brutal game of British Bulldog, it was to ‘Be Prepared’!