Are You A Tigger Or An Eeyore?
The “Now and Not Yet" of Life To The Full.
The classic children’s tale, Winnie-the-Pooh, following the adventures of Christopher Robin and his make-believe(?) animal friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, has entered folklore. In the years since it was written its characters have become tropes to explain personalities, predilections, and even leadership styles.
Top of the tropes list is the difference between the gloomy donkey, Eeyore, and the bouncy, upbeat tiger, Tigger. “Don’t be an Eeyore!” we hear people say when we are dragging our feet or expressing ongoing reservation about a decision. Little do such Tiggers know how much Eeyores resent such breezy and - let’s face it - unfounded optimism!
When it comes to the Christian response to Jesus’ declaration in John 10, the declaration that has given name to our organisation, that he came to bring life and “life to the full”, church history and theology indicates that we all occupy a space on the Tigger-Eeyore sliding scale.
When Jesus made that statement did he assume that the full life in all its victory and glory was available to us in the here and now? Or was he making a statement about the future?
In other words, are the benefits of the gospel on tap, and the only issue is that we have to turn the handle, and that our experience of a less-than-full life now is down to our lack of awareness as to what is available to us?
Or, in contrast to that, are the primary benefits yet to come, and the life that we experience now is a mere, withered shadow, and all is ahead of us? The general thrust of life is suffering, but the heavenly age will turn things around 180 degrees?
Tigger or Eeyore! You decide!
Clearly it’s not simply down to a simple theological equation, is it? We haven’t even added in our own experiences of the Christian life, or the deep subterranean currents of our own psychologies. Things seem far more complex than an either/or.
At Life To The Full, we have a commitment to the framework that the Bible brings to bear on the Christian life, what theologians call “the now and the now yet”. In the gospel all of the riches (spiritual and material) that God in Christ has won for us are truly ours.
Peter says “his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness!” (2Peter1:3) That’s the now!
Yet without pausing for breath, Peter goes on to say “For this very reason make every effort..” going on to describe how life is to be lived in such a way that we finally enter the eternal kingdom (2Peter 1:5-11). That’s the not yet!
In fact the whole New Testament affirms this framework. Which means that when we read Jesus’ words in John 10, there’s a deep flavour of “the now and the not yet” baked into them. Jesus himself is the case in point. He was God’s glorious King, and his miracles and words attested to his “now” power. Yet he was also the “man of sorrows” who wept over sinful humanity and indeed suffered at its hands on the cross, demonstrating that his ultimate glorification was “not yet”.
If this is true of Jesus, then it certainly means that both things can be true of us at the same time. The Christian life is a life lived along the Tigger-Eeyore spectrum, so to speak.
And nowhere is this more true than in the oft-vexed area of mental health. At Life To The Full we are committed to the fact that mental health issues are real and that we often struggle to make sense of this external world - and indeed our own interior world - because the “now” of sin, brokenness, frailty, addictions, circumstances that beset us, and our own pathologies, bring us suffering and struggle. And we are committed to sitting in that space with our clients.
But it is also true that Jesus makes a difference to how we frame this suffering and struggle. The conviction that we hold about the Christian life is that Jesus is with us in the midst of these times. And he makes a difference.
For while the struggles and sufferings themselves are not “good”, the gospel tells us that Jesus empathises with us (Heb 4:15) but also that Jesus empowers us (Heb 4:16). Jesus is not just impotently feeling sorry for us in this life, he even now by his Spirit sustains us with the power of the life to come.
And finally, the gospel also tells us that one day all of the struggle and suffering will be put behind us, and that is the hope which enables us to keep going in these times. That’s “the now and the not yet” in a nutshell.
And that’s the philosophy of Life To The Full in a nutshell too. We know that every so-called Tigger can come crashing down to earth with a bang as trials and circumstances hit hard. And we know that ever so-called Eeyore can be empowered with a joy and purpose in life even in the midst of sufferings and trials.
Most of all we know that we are all pretty much on the “Eeyore-Tigger sliding scale. Life is more complex than those two extremes would suggest. And the implications are that Jesus’ words in John 10 are also “both/and”. Life to the full is available “now" in the gospel by the power of the risen Jesus who gives us a joy in the midst of all circumstances.. And life to the full awaits us when sin is defeated, suffering is banished and our broken selves are glorified in the “not yet”.
That’s hope for Tiggers, for Eeyores, and for all of us in between.