As a young gymnast, Jess had the world at her feet, until a training accident left her in constant pain. A decade later, the terrible decision to amputate the problematic leg had been made, but this wasn’t without it’s challenges. Jess recalls, “It took five or six months just to get the anaesthetist and the surgeon in the same room,” but finally the day had arrived. “We’d been counting down the days and hours… I’ve been bed-bound now for a year. It’s long enough.” [BBC Lifestyle & Health News, 15 May 2017, via Radio 5 Live]

The op never took place. Instead, Jess will need it to be rescheduled, and with a surgeon very much in demand, it could be months.

The culprit here?

A piece of software, more precisely, malware, called Wanna Decryptor.

In one deft stroke it rendered the vast network of NHS computers useless, turning the clocks back to the days of paper and pen to organize a budget of nearly 120 billion pounds and 1.5 million employees.

The temptation to press snooze

Cyber attacks appear out of the blue, but are never unexpected. Less than 12 months before the attack that crippled 47 NHS trusts up and down the country, Dame Fiona Caldicott, the National Data Guardian, warned top levels of Government of a critical “lack of understanding of security issues.” Ninety per cent of NHS trusts still operate Windows XP, a platform that was launched in 2001 and ceased to be shipped on new computers in 2008. Add to that fact the expiration of a support contract with Microsoft in 2015 leaving individual trusts, often cash-strapped, responsible for upkeep and you’ve got a problem.

To make matters worse, it appears that a shadowy organisation flagged in April that it had stolen a cyber weapon from the National Security Agency—the super-powerful military machine that may have already sniffed its way to this blog post before you read it.

Former CIA employee and whistleblower, Edward Snowden tweeted,

The lack of readiness is astounding but unsurprising.

  • Why would the NSA keep the information to themselves?
  • Why did Dame Caldicott’s warning fall on deaf ears?
  • Why will it take another decade to reduce reliance on an old operating system when it could get exploited again and again and again, leaving many more feeing like the system is playing Operation with their lives?

Probably for the same reasons that churches fail to heed the warnings from countless reports, surveys, and stories of decline, and continue to tread the path they have carved out over decades: the wrong kind of fear. These are the reasons we delay the inevitable, pressing the snooze button so that we can stay in dreamland a little longer.

Introducing the fear

I love the British Sign Language expression for fear. It captures what I used to experience—a vice-like grip around my heart. Under threat, the nervous system takes over with a “fight or flight” response. But there’s a third response: Freeze. Fear for survival paralyses. It’s the response of the army of Israel in the shadow of Goliath, the three-metre Philistine super-soldier, recorded in 1 Samuel 17. For 40 days, the champion fighter would issue the same challenge, both morning and evening:

“Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” (17:8–9)

The detail is revealing. I don’t think that it was simply his might that paralysed the Israelites—it was the consequences if their fighter went toe to toe and lost. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, used the prophet Habbakuk to demonstrate how we should move from fear to faith. I think there is another journey, one that takes you deeper into faith, and discovers a new kind of fear—one that puts all other fear into perspective. May I introduce “The Fear”.

The Bible speaks consistently about fearing God, but in Genesis 31:42 Jacob is complaining to his employer/father-in-law about his treatment:

“If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.”

There is some debate amongst scholars as to whether this is simply a characteristic of God or a name. The ESV goes for the latter whilst recognising the former, capitalising Fear. Most of us treat Jesus as God All-matey, rather than All-mighty, resulting in a 1:72 model kit of the real thing. David, a young shepherd with no military training, saw the fear in Israel, recognised The Fear of Israel, and brought a giant to his knees.

Moving forward

When your resources are perceived as finite, fear prevents you taking risks, even if the risks are sensible choices that reduce other dangers and might lead to growth. If you knew you had infinite resources, you would live differently, for example:

  • Upgrading the software (leads to) fewer malware attacks (therefore) little down time.
  • Employing the youth minister (leads to) more young people involved (therefore) church has a brighter future (potentially!).
  • Renovating the ageing spaces (leads to) less time and money spent on upkeep (and) more accessible, bespoke spaces.

Theologically, we have all of the resources we need, which is perhaps why Paul wrote that “we live by faith not by sight” in 2 Corinthians 5:7. Reverse those triplets above and reflect on the following questions in turn:

  1. What would the good life look like?
  2. What are the things that would get us there?
  3. What barrier do we need to begin to address today?