Still standing

I’m still standing is the new autobiography by Fabrice Muamba. Back in March, the footballer collapsed while playing for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham in a televised match. He’d had a cardiac arrest, and despite immediate medical help on the pitch his heart could not be restarted until 78 minutes later. During that time, Muamba was technically dead, and brain damage seemed inevitable.

From the moment the 38,000-strong crowd realised something was seriously wrong, many people at the stadium and across the country were praying for him. Over the next few days, the national press did God. ‘God in control’, ran a Sun headline. ‘Your prayers are working’ claimed Metro.

Fabrice Muamba made an almost complete recovery. There was no brain damage. Normal kidney function returned after a fortnight. Some residual heart weakness means he’s had to give up football, but his very survival is a gift, a miracle.

Fabrice, a Christian says ‘I personally don’t believe in the word “luck”. It’s not part of my vocabulary. The word I prefer is “blessed”. Because that’s how I feel.’

Recently a friend here in Inverness had a chemical burn on his hand which became infected. The skin was red and inflamed; he couldn’t hold or lift anything. At church a visiting pastor sensed that the word ‘septicaemia’ was relevant to a person in the room, and mentioned this. 

No-one responded, until someone said to my friend ‘What about your hand?’ He hadn’t been able to put a name to his condition, but he held out the hand and the pastor prayed with him. Immediately the pain left; the skin gradually reverted to its normal colour before their eyes; the hand grew strong, fully restored apart from the skin abrasion which soon cleared up. The word ‘miracle’ seems appropriate.

Even as Christians some of us look for rational explanations for stories like these. Some of us have a theology (which I believe is mistaken) that God simply doesn’t do miracles at this point in history. Others of us acknowledge the possibility of miracles, but like to be in control, and feel threatened by a God who acts with such glorious unpredictability. And some of us play host to a sceptical spirit of cynicism.

We learn to trust God most in those moments when we realise with Muamba ‘How quickly life can change. How quickly life can end.’ and in our vulnerability and need, or our knowledge of someone else’s vulnerability and need, we call out to God.

Before the game that March day Fabrice asked God ‘for protection and safety.’ In one sense that prayer wasn’t answered – he was not protected from cardiac arrest. In a perhaps profounder sense it was answered – he was brought through the hard times. But at the deepest level of trust in God we know ourselves secure, even when there are no miracles, at least of the rapid and dramatic kind. Secure, whether we live, or die.

Fabrice is, by his own confession not a super-Christian. He admits to mistakes and failures. Some of his ideas are debatable. For instance: ‘I’m someone who has lived a good life. When you do that the good things head back in your direction’. And again ‘As far as you can see is as far as you can reach. Visualise something and do it. It’s as simple as that.’  But the point is that we all make mistakes, we all have some wacky ideas, but God still loves and cherishes us.

We are at our best as human beings when we discover that God is present and active. That the universe is not simply a machine, that we are not mere animals, but that all of it, the whole shebang is sustained by the breath of God.

I believe in miracles. But I don’t believe that miracles are the sporadic breaking in to reality of a normally distant God. Miracles are one of many ways in which God is at work in God’s world. God works in our relationships, in our circumstances, in the everyday events of our lives. God implants in our minds creative ideas and impressions – like that word ‘septicaemia’. Where God gives the vision, nothing can stop us.

‘I’ve done enough dying to last a lifetime,’ writes Fabrice.  If my heart is burdened and broken, and it seems that not just for 78 minutes but for days or months or years I have struggled and failed and messed up, the living Jesus calls me back to reality, awakening me to the wonder of a universe enchanted by its Creator’s presence, inviting me to live to the full this precious, fragile God-gifted life.

And at the end of our lives, we’ll be able to say, through the grace of God ‘I’m still standing.’

(Christian Viewpoint column from Highland News dated 6th December 2012)