Different rules for a different country | The Chaplaincy of Poitou Charentes

Different rules for a different country

 Coming out of our local Carrefour, I walk to the car and open the right-hand door, expecting to see a steering wheel. ‘Wrong side – again!’ This has been a frequent refrain for me, since moving to France last November. We’re still settling in. There’s much to get used to – different rules for a different country.
Waking up to another day of rain, I moan. Receiving an unwelcome email, I want to snap back unkindly. Reading the news, I despair. But the refrain applies equally here - ‘Wrong side – again!’ I relocated to God’s Kingdom some thirty-seven years ago. I’m still settling in. There’s much to get used to – different rules for a different country.
I doubt I’ll ever feel completely at home in God’s Kingdom, well… not in this life. Certain habits from the ‘old country’ are too deeply ingrained. My ‘go-to’ reactions remain hardwired within my system, like weeds that will not be rooted out until harvest. In times of stress, it’s all too easy to forget my new citizenship and the new rules I’m aspiring to live by. My new Ruler understands and responds to my follies with kindness. I don’t hear a frustrated, ‘Oh come one you should have got this by now!’ but rather a ‘Let’s see what amends need to be made and then we’ll start afresh.’
On paper I know my correct Kingdom dweller’s responses quite well: we feel beleaguered – we pray, in the face of injustice - we protest, when wounded – we do not seek revenge, on encountering a hurting soul – we stop and care, rather than passing by on the other side… and so on. I do know these things, and if there was a written citizenship test, in a calm exam room, I’d probably do OK. But life’s exam room often catches me on the hop and all too often sees me reverting to the wrong side – again! This is OK – my new Ruler is a very patient tutor and does not abandon slow learners.
One of the few things I’m not enjoying about France is the bureaucracy. Who would have thought pet insurance could be so complicated? The number of forms required is staggering and the convoluted language is often too much for Google Translate. In stark contrast, the rules for citizens in God’s Kingdom are simple. They boil down to just three: love God completely and love your neighbour as you love yourself (the third, ‘loving ourselves’, being implicit in the second). Being simple to write, does not make them simple to obey. Often it’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that trouble me – it’s the part that I understand, but still struggle to implement.
But enough with talking the struggles - they are not the main point of moving. St Paul found his old ways hard to shrug off – ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death’ (Romans 7:24). His frustrations did not keep him down for long. This new country is exciting, not for its landscape, architecture, gastronomy or viticulture – but for its Ruler and people. Choosing life with God is an adventure far greater than uprooting from the UK to France. Everything changes. God explained this to Isaiah, ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ (Isaiah 55:8). Our new life in God’s Kingdom is a daily adventure, discovering God and God’s people, with God as our guide to just how different these new ways are from anything we’ve been used to in the old country.