I find myself reading about Newton’s laws of motion this
morning. Yes, I’m on Wikipedia. Yes, my head is swimming with equations I don’t
understand. Yes, I’m thankful I got to skip physics class – if this is physics?
I’m honestly not sure if it’s English yet…
From Wikipedia, the source of all tested and approved
knowledge, Newton came up with three laws of motion. The literal English
translation of the laws is as follows:
Law I: Every body persists in its
state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar
as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.
Law II: The alteration of motion
is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the
direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.
English
please?
Law II: The change of momentum of
a body is proportional to the impulse impressed on the body, and happens along
the straight line on which that impulse is impressed.
Thanks?
Law III: To every action there is
always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each
other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
All of these laws in their simplest form take place in an inertial
frame of reference – “a frame of reference that describes time and space
homogeneously, isotropically and in a time-independent manner.” Thanks for keeping that simple, Wikipedia?
Apparently there are many types of frames of reference, and those types can be
interrelated, and praise Jesus I’m not a physicist!
Why am I talking about physics on this rainy Tuesday instead
of being curled up in my favorite Clemson hoodie with a cup of tea watching How
I Met Your Mother on Netflix? Because I found myself ending my Monday in my
lifecoach’s office and this “object persisting in a state of forward motion”
met a compelling force in that black leather chair. The force of all that I was
carrying, all that I was afraid to put words to, all that I was hesitant to
acknowledge broke the emotional dam in my soul and flooded into the room, into
the light. I was stunned by the weight of it – my chest felt heavy, my lungs
burned as I inhaled, suddenly aware that I had been running and functioning,
moving in one constant forward motion with a tremendous burden I was too afraid
to release.
The
truth is, as little as I understand about physics, I know that we do not live
in an inertial frame of reference. I know that time and space are never
perfectly balanced and that humanity dwells in a time-dependent manner. I know
that the force compelling me to keep moving forward is also the force that
compels me to go backwards at times. I know that force is fear. Perfectionism, the
driving forward force, is the fruit of fear of man, fear of rejection, fear of
failure, fear of mediocrity, fear of judgment, fear of indifference, fear of
insufficient grace.
According
to Newton, when the force that compels me in one direction meets another force,
there is always an equal and opposite reaction.
Wikipedia gives the great example of walking – when I push against the
floor, the floor also pushes against my foot in an equal way, allowing me to be
able to walk and not fall through the floor. Again, this is within that perfect
inertial frame of reference – Newton wasn’t thinking about you walking through
a creaky old attic and falling through the floor boards. When it comes to
interacting with people, I can see this law at play. We tend to go through
life, each compelled by a forward force, but we bump up against one another
don’t we? We interact and react with one another, and outside of that inertial
frame of reference, that perfectly simple world, we become reactionary. Your
force of anger might meet my force of fear and I react by fleeing, fighting,
bottling up a burden and continuing in whatever direction you just pushed me.
Your force of need just met my force of fear and I react by giving you all I
can because I’m too afraid to disappoint, so I bottle up that burden and
continue in whatever direction you just pushed me. Your force of fear just met
my source of fear, and we’re both too afraid to call it like we see it so we
continue in whatever direction the other pushed us in.
But
what happens when the force that compels us, that impresses the direction of
our lives changes to something constant despite the ever changing frames of
reference we find ourselves in? What happens in the law of motion when the
force that compels me is not a natural force – when the force is perfectly balanced
and independent of time? What happens when Jesus becomes the compelling,
forward moving force in my life – when he intersects and changes the direction
of my thinking, of my life, in a black leather chair and says “Walk forward
this way. Let the reality of who I am, of the Gospel, be the force that compels
the motion in your life.”? What happens when other people’s forces of need,
fear, anger, dependence all bump against my life – when I can choose to react
to their action or to continue to be compelled forward in the grace of the
Gospel?
Because
maybe the Gospel is really described in Newton’s second law – I was going about
my way, in a forward motion compelled by the force of fear (a slave to the
force of sin) until the force of grace, of life, of freedom all found in the
cross of Christ intersected my life and entirely changed its trajectory. While the breadth and depth of the Gospel
cannot be contained in a physics lesson, or in laws of motion, it can be
evidenced. It can be seen. The Gospel was written by a Holy God who receives
the most glory when His people find their satisfaction in a personal
relationship with Him – and in His presence there is complete freedom. Complete
freedom means that I don’t have to continue being compelled and impressed by
natural forces – by slavery to fear or anger or codependence, by my
circumstances or by yours – it means that I don’t have to be the source that
fuels the force of my life. It means that Jesus has forever changed the course
of my life, and with him as the compelling force I don’t have to live
reactionary. It also means that when our lives intersect, the impression of
Christ meets you – the Gospel intersects your life and impacts the direction of
your motion in the life-giving way that my fear never could.
Father be the force
that compels the motion in our lives. That we might not move forward bottling
up burdens that were never meant for us to carry alone but to surrender to You.
Jesus be the impressed force that sends us out into freedom, that when we intersect
the lives of others we do so marked with Your compassion, grace, and wisdom.
Overflow in us that we might overflow into others the life and freedom of the
Gospel.
all of my love,
a
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