You're... Trapped!

 Do you remember that somewhat morbid CBBC show, 'Trapped'? Six kids would be 'trapped' in a tower and need to escape through multiple minigames, and there would be a voice spoken into the ear of one that 'you are the saboteur'. I only recently learnt that the participants weren't actually trapped in the tower, and I used to get quite worried about what their parents would do when they didn't return home from a TV show... I can't have been the only one, I hope. Currently, life feels a bit like I'm a participant on that show. Let me explain. 

There's the tower; the constructs of our life. Or, more accurately, the limitations currently placed on our life. I feel stuck in a relentless monotony of existence. Far from most of my friends, suddenly without the independence of university student life, and nothing productive to be working on. Pretend I don't still have a dissertation to write. 

Now, there is the wonder of video calling, and I have some wonderful people around me at home, don't get me wrong. I'm also free to roam independently at home - mothership does not have me locked up, I assure you. But I'm not 10 minutes from the city centre. It's also not anxiety-free as we need to, and truly should be, still taking precautions to prevent the spread of Covid. I know the reality is not that I am trapped in a tower, but it still feels like it sometimes. 

There's the delegated saboteur; sometimes myself, sometimes circumstances. In order to escape the tower, the saboteur must prevent someone else escaping the tower. It's the choices we are forced to make, and sometimes these feel like impossible options. At the age I was watching the show, when I firmly believed people were genuinely trapped in the tower, the impact of this was massive and permanent. Do you sacrifice yourself for the freedom of a friend? What if you are just a terrible liar? Could you throw someone else under the bus for your own freedom? The effects would be permanent, after all...

Naturally, every other person watching who was aware it was just a TV show and not a matter of kidnapping, would have placed a much smaller weight on the saboteur. It's just a temporary minigame; a matter of claiming the victory prize, or leaving with simply a new experience. Likewise, when our perspective is fogged, or blurry, or limited, we can believe circumstances to be unending. One choice to dictate every-single-thing-ever-again-in-the-future-completely-undoable.

Of course, there are choices that can dictate our future, like wearing a seatbelt, or putting your trust in Jesus (see what I did there?). But, for the sake of my metaphor, let's put them to the side. In the tower, the constructs of our present life, we have choices to make, and circumstances that are placed upon us. 

Fundamentally, whatever we choose, we will escape the tower. Filming has to end. Time has to pass. Life has to change. It's all temporary. 

How often do we get strung up on a choice? For me, it was choosing to take time out of university. I made that decision a week before lockdown and it has heavily influenced the tower I feel trapped in. I can make choices in these strange worldly circumstances such as how to invest my time, or whether to cry again in frustration that my friends are moving on in life and I am still not a graduate. I laugh, but admittedly, it is very difficult to feel static in a spinning world. 

Ultimately, I am going to escape the tower. I will return to Durham to finish my degree, and I'll do so in a healthier place, with new experience and knowledge under my belt. That, and I'm working in a job I love and hope to go into in the future. I am not trapped permanently. I'm probably not even temporarily trapped, but that feeling has weight to it and it's okay to feel something, as long as it doesn't get the steering wheel. 

The saboteur may include choosing to sulk in frustration at this season of life, or festering bitterness rather than growing joy for my friends as they move forward. However, when I keep perspective - when I trust the One who holds the weight of the world in His hands - everything shifts. Sometimes I have to remind myself ninety times a day that I am not static, that there's a greater plan, that the BBC does not kidnap. 

Alas, you have to keep reminding yourself. 

I once read that our first thought towards something is what society has conditioned you to think, but the second thought is who you are. I believe this makes a lot of sense; flash, immediate thoughts are somewhat uncontrollable, but how we respond in thought to that initial idea is impact by choice. 

Keep perspective. There's a bigger picture. 

And you do not have to be the one pulling the strings because you aren't the one in control.

Take care.

'We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.' 2 Cor 10:5