Utumishi Blog

We live in a world that has perfected the art of escapism. When you take a public vehicle in the evening after work you notice how many people are on their phones. Some are scrolling down WhatsApp statuses and others going through numerous TikTok videos. It’s how we unwind after a busy day at the office. But it’s the same at home, hours and hours are spent on Facebook and YouTube. It’s what we do when we are idle or just don’t want small talk. It’s where we escape when the sermon is boring or when we are waiting in a queue. Basically, we will do anything to avoid the discomfort of waiting or having to endure boring lectures. But I think we do this when we are going through troubling times as well. We immediately find something to take our minds away from it. We go out drinking with friends. We binge-watch Netflix and spend countless hours escaping the uncomfortable reality.

Some people spend time wrestling with God and his word in times of difficulty but a lot more people do everything they can to escape reality. It’s like disciplining a child by keeping them in the house only for them to spend the whole day watching anime. You wanted them to take time and think about their mistake but they found a fun way to escape it. It’s like couples who give each other the silent treatment only to enjoy staying out with friends, time-lapses and they move on like nothing happened. Talk of going through a hard time financially or facing a loss and instead of asking God those hard questions we fill our time with escapist ideas. Unfortunately, we forget that escapism doesn’t resolve the problems we have and we waste what God wanted us to learn in that crucible of suffering. It’s therefore possible to go through a difficult time and yet come out as if nothing much has happened. Why? Because we’ve learnt to suppress our emotions and escape to our happy place. So while some might come out of suffering with a renewed conviction and a great trust in God, many surrender to fate and find an easy escape. What a double tragedy that is!

But we are not the first generation to find ourselves here. Reading the prophets you get this feeling of indifference from God’s people. God is calling them out and calling them back to himself. He’s warning them of the coming exile. You see the invasion start happening and you think finally they’ll wake up and turn back to God but no. They escape it in food and drink and turn to their idols. It’s sometimes so unbelievable reading their story without realizing just how much they mirror our society. We might think we discovered YOLO until we read those words from Isaiah 22:

¹² The Lord, the Lord Almighty,
    called you on that day
to weep and to wail,
    to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.
¹³ But see, there is joy and revelry,
    slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,
    eating of meat and drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink,” you say,
    “for tomorrow we die!”

What are Friday nights for if not to enjoy our lives before we die? Sadly, some go out not because of the fun it brings but for the chance to escape reality. But conservative Christianity doesn’t allow for that kind of indulgence so we’ve found subtle ways to escape but still remain Christian. We throw ourselves into church activities. We move from one fellowship, meeting, prayer vigil, conference, mission, Bible study and whatever else we can find. Sadly, we might even think we are growing closer to God with all the praise from our leaders and yet sometimes we are just trying to escape. Others go the opposite direction and wallow in self-pity and in that discover all the cults and false teachers who sell cheap hope out there. But others have “good” movies and shows to get lost in before facing another trial.

But what if we learned to talk more to God during these times? What if we asked him all those hard questions? What if we told him to his face that we didn’t like how he was treating us? What if we stopped theologizing and poured our pain on him? What if we brought him our doubts and little faith? What if we turned to his word and sought to find answers from him? This may not necessarily solve our problems but it offers an opportunity for God to use them for good. There’s no point saying God will turn my suffering for good if we escape it. Instead, we can learn from Jesus’ own experience with suffering. He cries to God to take away his cup of suffering and yet embraces his will, see Mark 14:34-36. But even then he cries at the cross asking God why he was abandoning him, see Mark 15:34-37. The greatest theologian didn’t explain suffering or escape to think about other things. He faced God and poured his heart out to him. He asked questions he already knew the answer. But as long as he was speaking to God he was better off than those who don’t question God because they are escaping reality. God turned his misery for our good but God was also in his thoughts up to his last breath.

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