Zecharia, Jesuits, Lions and an Antidote for the Overthinker

Luke chapter 1.  Zecharia is in the temple and an angel appears.

The angel says to him,

“Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife Elizabeth will have a son, and you will name him John. He will be your pride and joy, and many people will be glad that he was born. As far as the Lord is concerned, he will be a great man...  

...he will change parents’ attitudes toward their children. He will change disobedient people so that they will accept the wisdom of those who have God’s approval. In this way he will prepare the people for their Lord.”

And Zechariah says to the angel,

“What proof is there for this? I’m an old man, and my wife is beyond her childbearing years.”

The angel answers him,

“I’m Gabriel! I stand in God’s presence. God sent me to tell you this good news. But because you didn’t believe what I said, you will be unable to talk until the day this happens. Everything will come true at the right time.”

When the angel told Zecharia that his elderly wife would bear a son named John (the Baptist) Zecharia's first response was to ask him "How?" and he was struck dumb for this.

Sometimes we need to remember that 'How' is often God's department, whereas what he asks of us is 'What'.

I'm busy planning for some large, important events in my day job. There's a lot on and sometimes I feel overwhelmed. And in that overwhelm I often think that I need to have a perfect, bullet proof, 100% correct plan.

And this can be paralysing, because in over-planning I actually do less work.

God's plan may be in the 24 hours each day

In The Jesuit's Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, he makes this point,

"Sometimes, maybe, stop trying to agonise over what God's plan is for me as a kind of I need to have a full mission, everything mapped out, long term 'aha' moment.

Instead, each 24 hours I can look and respond to what God has put in front of me. I can focus on his plan for this day."

Tracking Lions

When I took last summer off I was at one of those crossroads of wanting to know what to do next. Asking the existential questions of Why am I here? What is God's plan for me? What's my purpose or mission?  As part of this I picked up and read The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life. A real story of how Boyd (a coach) learned tracking from two friends in the South African bush and how these can help us navigate the direction of our own lives.

In Lion Trackers Guide he mentions an important concept in tracking. To begin, you just look for 'First Tracks'. You know you want to go further but you just do the one small first thing, find the first tracks, follow, see if they are correct, re-calibrate, maybe go back, correct, then move onto the next thing. 

And he applies this to all of his clients who want help.

"I thought of all the people I had met who wanted a full vision for a new life and then to move from where they were straight into it. I thought of all the people who had told me that when they knew exactly what they wanted to do, then they would leave the soul-destroying thing that they were currently involved with.

Obsessed with perfection and doing it right, we want to go straight to the lion. We don't realise the significance of the path of first tracks and how to be invested in a discovery rather than an outcome."

Today and at other times we may have moments when we're feeling overwhelmed. We may feel paralysed because we want everything mapped out.

But it's in each 24 hour day that we actually live, not in the future or the past. And in each 24 hour day we can look, love and respond to what God has given us, letting him worry about the how and instead, faithfully just following the tracks on our adventure towards the lion.