Swedish Update #2

Part I: Why I am spending a year of my life living in an orphanage studying the bible.

If this season along the banks of the Skaggerak is a chapter in my life, it is a part of a book of my life, one that started in September of 2010, and it started with a choice. I was lying in my bed, facing the imminent terror of graduating college and not knowing what was next. The dilemma I faced was centered both around how uncertain all of life can feel and about what it meant when I believed to myself that I was a Christian. In a way, the second part was easy - It didn’t trouble me that I was a Christian, I had come to a point in my relationship with God that I knew that was what I needed, but I didn’t know what that implied for the actual patterns in which I lived my life. I found myself torn between how safe and easy it would be to just go and find a job somewhere, earn some money, be comfortable. I knew in my heart from the beginning that this wasn’t going to be an option for me; life is too short and too filled with wonder to squander on comfort and security. The other option was to legitimately give up all resemblance of a normal life and legitimately depend on God and earnestly try to fulfill his commandment: to love him and to love others. 

A premise tempted me, though, one perhaps more dangerous than before. Live wild and free, for a year or two. save some souls, feel the air as it radiates off the hot pavement of a long road - then pack it in, go home and be normal. Get some degree that assures me a comfortable life. I am convinced that this is the more dangerous lie for me, because of how nice it sounds. But it worked for good, getting me out of the door. I spent those lovely seasons in Kirksville and Thailand, enjoying every minute of the air through my skin, as though I needed to get it all in before the road ended in some place of comfort where I didn’t have to think so much about how life can be so beautiful and yet so ugly, so joyful and yet so sad. But through the whole thing, something even more dangerous and wonderful happened. I realized that I had been set free, free from normal. As a good friend of mine put it, “We have enough people choosing the life that comes to them when they don’t put up a fight, and I don’t intend to be one more.” And it was as if I was climbing a hill, thinking that the place I was reaching towards was just over the ridge, and when I came to the peak, before me the path of discipleship stretched endlessly into the future, across a thousand peaks and into the horizon. None of that is to say I have my whole life figured out, I don’t. I don’t even know what happens in July when I finish my studies here. I only know that I want to be kind, not as a hobby but as something I do with my life. I gave up that normal life, and the new one is as exciting as it is terrifying. 

And there were a few things that occurred to me when I decided to give up the normal life. It meant that I had to trust God to be my provider. It meant that I wouldn’t always be comfortable, and that I would even be risking my neck, knowing that if God is real whatever happens is his will. I have learned to be grateful for everything. But let us not be naive: it meant that I needed to be equipped. When I would say that I believed in God and Jesus and what it said in the bible, I really meant it, but there was this part of the truth that rang hollow. I believed in it, but I didn’t really know what it said, which robbed me of any sense of authority. I believe in the church, not as a bureaucratic institution but as a literal family. I believe that if the church fulfills its’ calling, we can provide solutions to the great problems of the world. But I don’t think we are what we ought to be, I think something is terribly wrong with what we’ve done here, and I think our generation can fix it. And if I am to speak that with authority, I ought to know what I am talking about. And the thing is, I don’t think this is just for me, I think it’s something at the very heart of discipleship, that most believers neglect at their own expense. That isn’t to say SBS is for everyone, but that inductive study of the bible is for all believers. I am convinced that the reason why the gospel isn’t appealing to many people is that many of the people that proclaim it don’t actually know what it says. I intend to contribute to the solution to that statistic.

So I knew I wanted to study the bible. Here’s why I chose SBS: It forced me to give up all of the bad reasons. It isn’t accredited, so I won’t have a shiny piece of paper to wave around to anyone to show how qualified I am. It isn’t preparing me for some specific occupation. It’s preparing me for life. SBS is an inductive study, which means we emphasize with everything what it actually means for the way we live our lives. Every day I am confronted truth that I’m forced to deal with. I don’t know what happens from here, but I know that what I’m learning is important because what I’m learning is about who I’m becoming.

Part II: The Restenäs Life

It’s hard to know what to say in a way that could translate, so much of it it feels as if one would just have to be here. 

I am grateful to God. for everything. For the little patch of Sweden I call home, for this place and these people, for all of the people and places on all the paths I have traveled that brought me to here. I’m grateful for the morning walk to breakfast, hours before the sun will rise, to eat muesli and drink coffee and appreciate waking up as a sort of an act of worship. I’m grateful that I get to do this, to set aside time to grow and to wonder and to rest and to explore. I’m grateful for the path to the sea, the path to the mountain, for undiscovered corridors and attics filled with wonders, like flags and newspapers in swedish from a century ago. I’m grateful for long walks into town that take me over large hills, and how from the top of them I can see the ocean, and for the detours along the path that let me walk along the rocky coast. I’m grateful for fika, the lovely Swedish tradition to emphasize how important it is that every day we make time for each other. at 10:30 every morning the entire base (and all of Sweden) drops what we’re doing and we sit at a table with one another drinking coffee and sharing life together. I’m grateful for how hard it is, how studying the bible 50 hours a week pushes me and forces me to grow, and how there are days that I wake up and I don’t feel like it, but I find the strength to do it anyway. I’m grateful for how cold it is getting, how short the days are becoming, how our scarves and coats become more and more mandatory. I’m grateful to have a home, a room that overlooks a lovely valley, and the feeling that I can settle for a while and invest in this community. I’m grateful for how simple my life is for this season, how I never have to drive anywhere and all of my meals feel as if we’re sitting around a family dinner table. I'm grateful for how kind people can be, for friends who take care of me when I'm sick and who share life with me. I’m grateful that learning about the meaning of life is my job. I’m grateful for relying on I’m grateful for all of the many people I miss so dearly, because the longing reminds me of how much I love them. And I’m grateful for Jesus Christ, who not only saved me from death, but saved me for a life of meaning and beauty. I am grateful for the life I have, and I am excited to find out where it goes from here.

There’s more I could say. I find it hard to write because I’m very busy studying the other six days of the week, and life is too short to spend so much of it on the internet. If you want to know more about my life in this season, actually get ahold of me! Send me letters! Draw me pictures to put on my wall!

Austin Roberts / SBS Sept 2012

Restenäs 239

459 93 Ljungskile

Sweden

(All YWAMers depend on support and are basically unemployed vagabonds. I am committed to providing for my school, but if you want to help let me know! If you can afford but a postage stamp, send me a letter and say hello and that would be blessing enough. End of plug.)