Rend Collective, the Northern Irish band whose worship songs inspire and encourage many, have just released a short video documentary about their latest tour ‘As Family We Go’ (see here.)
I’m always encouraged by ‘backstage’ stories. The ‘front stage’ stories are obvious; I’ve attended two Rend Collective concerts now and sung my heart out, along with ‘worship orbs’ (beach balls by any other name!) and confetti, and have always been blessed by the zaniess, exuberance and sheer joy of these people. But I’m well aware that the couple of hours on stage is just a fraction of a person’s life. What happens the rest of the time? What is it like to effectively live on a bus for months on end? As an introvert, I’m not sure I could stand the close proximity of even my family and best friends in that environment! (see Patrick’s article for an introvert’s perspective on that!) How do you bring freshness and joy to work that, however great, is always going to have its repetitive moments? How do you sing joyfully when your heart is breaking over a miscarriage, as happened to Ali & Gareth Gilkeson, or how do you cope with needing the toilet because you’re eight months pregnant and you need to be on stage for two hours, as happened recently?!
The short documentary gives a brief glimpse into the ordinariness of what often seems to outsiders a very glamorous life (I’m personally convinced there is nothing glamorous about brushing one’s teeth in a morning watched by eleven other people…!) I think most of us look at other people’s lives and think they are more glamorous than our own, if I’m honest. We romanticise life because life can be very difficult: caring for an elderly parent who no longer even recognises you or knows your name, changing the bedding yet again for an incontinent child, mopping up vomit for the nth time, inputting data for hours on end at a computer screen, washing dishes which will only need washing again in a few hours’ time. Life is so often monotonous, mundane, repetitive and tiresome. We get bogged down in the minutiae of it all; there’s nothing glamorous about being ‘on hold’ for an hour as you try to resolve a problem or wrestle with bureaucracy which doesn’t even recognise your existence!
But God is there in the ‘tedium of dailiness’, to borrow Eugene Peterson’s phrase. Joy is available even in the repetitive and unglamorous. I love Matt Redman’s song ‘Your Grace Finds Me’, because it highlights the ubiquity of grace. Yes, grace is there in the baby’s newborn cry, as we wonder at the marvel of life. But grace is also there in the endless nappy-changing and interminable crying of that baby as it grows. Grace is available on the mountain-top, when we experience the highs of life, but it’s not only available in the depths of despair and distress; it’s there ‘in the everyday and the mundane.’
Our calling is to find grace, wherever we are. Backstage, frontstage, in the footlights, wherever we are. ‘Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.‘ (Col 3:17) The Jesus who healed the sick and raised the dead also ate ordinary meals, travelled on dusty roads, got tired out and slept in such exhaustion even a storm couldn’t wake him. When we take off our rose-coloured spectacles and remove our envy of others, grace is there waiting for us – rich and poor alike, saint and sinner alike. It’s all about grace.
