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GOD’S AMAZING GIFT
GOD’S
AMAZING Gift
The gift of the French language changed my life, but it’s just a tiny glimpse of the transformation offered by God’s gift of eternity.
BY BJORN KARLMAN
MONKEYBUSINESSIMAGES—GETTY IMAGES Iwas 12 years old when my family moved to England. I had grown up on a different continent so almost everything about my new life seemed different. People drove on the left side of the road (except for my dad, who hadn’t quite made the mental shift and confidently drove our rental car straight into oncoming traffic soon after our arrival!) and rainy British weather was an adjustment. So was the fact that I had to wear a tie and a blazer to school every day.
Speaking of school, I was woefully behind my classmates in a number of subjects. Nowhere was this more obvious than French class. In stark contrast with the rest of eighth grade, I had not been subjected to several years of French language instruction. I had two French words—oui and monsieur—in my arsenal as I strode into my first French class.
Fortunately for me, I had an amazing French teacher. Miss Mitchell was not only superbly gifted in her grasp of French, but she took me under her wing immediately. Soon after my arrival she gave me just the opportunity I needed. She told me that if I came to her after school every Wednesday, she would tutor me in French so that I could catch up to the other students.
At first my progress was embarrassingly modest. Learning a language from scratch was intimidating. But Miss Mitchell stuck by her commitment and I started getting better. My grades began to rise. I grew more confident. Our sessions became fun. I really started to enjoy learning French.
Within the space of about a year and a half I was consistently making top marks in French class. Miss Mitchell’s decision to invest in me had shifted my self-image from a complete French language know-nothing to that of a confident, enthusiastic French learner. This teacher’s faith in me and her willingness to give me the boost I needed transformed me.
As I look back at those school years, I am struck by how fortunate I was to have Miss Mitchell as a teacher—she didn’t have to tutor me after school. But as long as I accepted the invitation to be helped, she made it clear that she would teach me. That help set me on a path that changed my life. I went on to get a degree in French. I’ve used French extensively at work. Speaking the language gave me opportunities I never would have imagined as a 12-year-old meeting Miss Mitchell for this first time. She gave me a gift.
On a far grander scale, each of us is offered a gift, an opportunity of literally life-changing potential. The gift is free for the taking. And if we accept it, we start an entirely new chapter in life. The Bible speaks of Christ as offering this gift. 2 Corinthians 5:17 describes anyone who has accepted this gift as a “new creation”. The verse promises that “the old has gone and the new is here!” It’s a promise of a completely fresh slate, a total reinvention.
How does this all work? It’s simple. The apostle Paul said that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). As in we humans have all missed the mark in terms of living how we should. The consequences for this are dire. Romans 6:23 says that the “wages of sin is death”.
But the reinvention God is offering is not just for a better life in the here and now, but a promise of eternal life with Him. We don’t deserve this gift, but God says it is ours for the taking: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
This is all possible because “while we were still sinners, Christ died
for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus died on the cross and paid the wages of sin on our behalf so that He could give us eternal life. It was an incredible sacrifice. The greatest gift.
The apostle John famously wrote, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
If you are struggling with guilt from past mistakes, join the club. We’ve all made monumental messups that we really regret. But the great news is that we don’t need to wallow in this guilt. We no longer need to be defined by our past. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” That’s pretty conclusive. God wants to help us chart a new course. He’s got a better future planned for us. He is equipping us for an infinitely better life.
Miss Mitchell gave me a gift that changed my future. She changed the way I thought about myself and taught me a skill that opened countless doors for me. I haven’t seen her in years, but when I do I have a lot of gratitude to express.
And in case you read this article before I get to you, Miss Mitchell, merci beaucoup!
Bjorn Karlman is a freelance writer who travels the world as a “digital nomad,” living in 2–3 countries per year with his wife and toddler.
BEARGRYLLS:
his riskiest adventure yet
The man who climbed Everest at 23 is now ready to take on a new challenge: being a little more public about his faith and writing a book about God.
BY PETER STANFORD
SUPPLIED
Bear Grylls selects which projects to take on, he explains, by going for the riskiest. That may explain why this former SAS serviceman and adventurer climbed Everest at 23, circumnavigated the British Isles on a jet-ski and made an unassisted crossing of the Atlantic in an open inflatable boat, before switching to front extreme endurance TV shows such as Born Survivor, Wild Weekend and The Island.
His newest venture, he insists, is part of the same pattern of pushing himself to the very limit, though at first glance it looks like a curious departure from the norm. The man who, in a celebrated episode of Born Survivor, emptied out the guts of a dead camel in the Sahara and then sheltered inside its carcass, is publishing a book about God.
Soul Fuel, which he describes as “a daily devotional”, contains 365 reflections to carry readers through the year and give “strength to a failing body”.
That Grylls has a private faith has been known since he invited Barack Obama to say a prayer with him at the end of filming a headline-grabbing episode of Running Wild in 2015, when he took the then-US president trekking in Alaska. But a daily devotional?
Grylls—often pictured walking through fire in advertisements for his TV series—looks uncharacteristically sheepish. “This is the only press I’m going to do on this, because half of me is a little bit self-conscious, and a little bit apprehensive,” he confesses. “Faith is a really intimate subject. And a difficult subject. I could have not done a book on faith,” he muses, “and it would be a lot safer.”
It’s a curious word to use, suggesting he feels he may be making himself a target by coming out as a believer in our secular, sceptical times. “In the words of C S Lewis, when the children in Narnia ask if Aslan [the Christ-like figure] is safe, the reply comes: ‘safe, no way, but he’s good.’ I’m not sure if I have the exact words, but for me it sums up the journey of faith.”
He has never wanted to be categorised by faith in his public and professional life, he explains, in case it somehow causes viewers to see him as too holy or pious. “I have been asked to be patron of Christian organisations, and I always feel bad saying no, but I say no because I just don’t want that label.”
The book began as something he had written for his family. “I have three boys,” he says in reference to Jesse, 16, Marmaduke, 13, and Huckleberry, 10, raised by Grylls and his wife, Shara.
“Faith has been a quiet but powerful part of our family and their lives growing up. And if I were ever not around, which will happen one day, here [in the book] are my thoughts.”
Presumably higher-than-usual odds of not being around to see his young family reach adulthood are part and parcel of being an adventurer? “Well, maybe,” he replies,
but he doesn’t want to be distracted from his main point about the book’s genesis. “Here are my thoughts on what will help you live an empowered, light-filled existence.”
How it went from family keepsake to main street bookshops brings us back to Obama. “So many people ask me about praying with
Obama. It was an off-camera moment at the end of it, but I thought, here is a man who I could see had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it just felt natural at the end of our journey.” In a YouTube clip that went viral, Grylls asks the Lord to “bless and protect” the then-president’s “work and family” before both men say “Amen”.
Today, his voice trails away as he remembers the moment. “People generally don’t want religion, but they like community and kindness. That stuff transcends borders and cultures.”
Grylls grew up on the Isle of Wight, where his Royal-Marine-
Commando-turned-Tory-MP father, Sir Michael, took him as a boy climbing sea cliffs. What formal religion there was in his childhood came at Eton in the school chapel, and he didn’t like it.
“Everything was liturgical and cassocks and Latin,” he recalls, “and
‘you’re in trouble because you’re late’.” It was distant and cold and gave a false impression that God is distant and cold. “And, for me, it has been a lifetime’s journey that is still continuing; of unravelling religion from faith. The heart of Christ’s message was about freedom and fun and light and love and forgiveness and risk-taking—always messy. But my experience as a child was of it being too neat.”
After his marriage at 25 to Shara in 2000, the couple made
their first home “on a barge in the River Thames. Grylls got involved with a group of friends who met regularly to play squash. “It was brilliant, not a parody but a reflection of how ‘church’ should be, because there were 10 of us— me, a vicar, a second-hand car dealer, a gay antique art dealer, a policeman, a soldier and a nightclub owner. We were totally different, but we’d meet every day at 3 o’clock and we always had each other’s backs in our lives.”
The cleric in question was Nicky Gumbel, developer of the Alpha Course, an introduction to Christianity that has proved effective and popular in bringing people back
into church. He is also the vicar of Holy Trinity, Brompton, in London, which counts among its alumni Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Grylls and Gumbel remain close, though he is not a member of his congregation. “I do go to HTB [as it is known] a few times during the year,” he says, “but mainly to have lunch with Nicky before or after. I don’t feel I have ever been a fully-fledged member of any church. Having said that, I have observed his church from the sidelines for 20 years, and I My boys joke about think he runs an me always going outward-facing, lovely church, on about ‘God- full of love and confidence’, not acceptance.” There have self-confidence. been some criticisms of HTB—for being a churchwithin-a-church in Anglicanism, cult-like, even, and for attracting mainly well-heeled young people. “All places have flaws,” Grylls reflects, “but Nicky’s leadership is rooted in humility. You see some church leaders and it becomes all about them, and their wealth, their buildings, if you’re this or that. Nicky has never been like that.” Grylls, you may have gathered, is not someone who feels the need
to channel his own faith through denominations or institutions. And that is very much the spirit of Soul Fuel. The text is based on a regular exchange he has about God with an old and close friend, Jim Hawkins, a school teacher.
“I miss the friendship and vulnerability of having an accountable buddy to share life things with on a deeper level than catching up for a beer,” he says. “With Jim, I’ve done a daily thing for many years; reading the Bible together and then emailing thoughts and some feeling and some struggles. Just short; 10 minutes.”
It is so important to him that he keeps it up even in the remotest parts of the world. “We do it absolutely every single day. If I know I am going to be out of comms for a few days, I’ll bank them up and send them.” In one of the entries, Grylls writes that the “perfect love of God” casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Is his faith the hidden force that makes him so fearless on screen?
“I have plenty of fear,” he corrects me. “I feel fear every day, but I’ve learnt two things: One, that that is OK; and two, that being brave isn’t the absence of fear.” And he feels braver, he isn’t afraid to admit, when he says a prayer—“when I say, ‘will You be beside me in this moment?’ My boys joke about me always going on about ‘God-confidence’, not self-confidence.”
“God-confidence” isn’t, he stresses, a cast-iron belief that he will always be safe. “Someone asked me recently, was I praying when my parachute wasn’t opening [in an accident in Kenya in 1997 that ended his SAS career]? Of course I wasn’t. I was saying, ‘F***, open!’ If I’d answered with some platitude, that would have been Christian rubbish. “That,” he protests, “is what puts people off Christians.”
Peter Stanford writes for the UK’s Daily Telegraph where the original version of this article first appeared. Used with permission.
