(CP) The former prime minister of Australia has told The Christian Post how God sustained him when he led his country through an especially tumultuous time, and how he has learned to find his value not in power, but in God's love for him.
Scott Morrison, a Christian who served as Australia's 30th prime minister from 2018 to 2022, detailed his faith journey in his 2024 book, Plans For Your Good: A Prime Minister's Testimony of God's Faithfulness.
The book posits three main questions based on Jeremiah 29:11, exhorting readers to consider "Who am I?," "How should I live?," and "What should I hope for?" The book provides pastoral reflections on how to answer such fundamental questions while weaving compelling stories from his own life and time in office.
Morrison emphasized to CP that the book is not a political memoir, but rather a message of hope to readers facing their own doubts and struggles.
"It's not a political book," he said. "If I wanted to write a political book, it probably would have been three times longer and would have been full of defenses and advocacy of my political agenda. That's what I did in politics, and I did that for a long time."
Morrison said his faith was not something he went into very often in great depth while serving as prime minister, but that leaving the public stage has offered him "an opportunity for me to just to be very open about my Christian faith and to declare it."
'A very difficult time'
Morrison's time as prime minister was marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, which he described as the biggest crisis Australia had faced since World War II.
The COVID-19 protocols in Australia drew criticism from some who believed they were too strict, though the country of 25 million people was one of the few able to bring new community-acquired COVID-19 cases down to zero in 2020. Morrison pushed back against critics who maintain there was a global conspiracy to oppress citizens.
"It was a very difficult time, and I think there was a lot of uncertainty and anxiety at the time," Morrison said. "People were trying to understand and explain what was going on. I just knew that we were dealing with a pathogen which was very, very dangerous and we had to deal with it. If there was a conspiracy, no one invited me to the meetings."
"It was tough. You're never going to get remedies and responses to that which was going to make everybody happy," he added.
Morrison said dealing with the rise of China was the most difficult issue he had to deal with as prime minister, noting how the Chinese government "sought to bully and break Australia," even as they were straining under the weight of the pandemic, a recession and some of the worst natural disasters the country had seen "in quite some time."
"Everywhere I went, I was seeing devastation and heartache in my own country, and that was heartbreaking," he said, adding that he credits God for strengthening him "to stand up to China and to do so with the backing of many of our friends, particularly in the United States, with whom I formed some very good personal and close relationships."
'Anxiety is human'
Morrison is also very open in his book about how he began to suffer anxiety attacks while serving as prime minister that required medication in 2021. He urged Christians not to be ashamed if they need help with their mental health amid what he described as "an anxiety crisis, particularly in Western society."
"Anxiety is human," he said, adding that his anxiety was not caused by policy challenges or security threats, but rather "physical exhaustion combined with the tenacious, relentless, personal, vindictive attacks — principally through secular voices in the media and opponents."
"We're all flesh and blood, mind and spirit," he said. "And these things can affect us after some period of time."
"I say to Christians that you take a pill for a headache, and your mental health is no different," he said. "The stresses that we labour under at times need that sort of support."
"I was on my knees at that time, I was praying, I was seeking the counsel and support of Christian friends and others, but there are physical things that happen that can affect your mental health, and you've got to be mindful of those things."
Morrison also said Christians should acknowledge the spiritual aspect of anxiety by casting their anxieties on the Lord.
"As Christians, we need to learn how we can just hand these things over to God; the anxieties are real, the things we're anxious about are real," he added. "We can't pretend they're not there, and we've just got to deal with them and hand them over to Him and allow Him to give us peace."
'Constant source of strength and wisdom'
Morrison stressed the importance of having a community of believers who upheld him in prayer while he was in office, including a tight-knit group of pastors.
"You can't live your faith other than in community of brothers and sisters in Christ, and that's intentional by design, I believe," he said.
"God helps us when we're on our knees in prayer; He helps us when we're reflecting on His work, and He also encourages us and supports us through those he puts around us. I've always been blessed with that, and, frankly, sought it out."
Morrison suggested the increasingly secular nature of Western societies makes Christian fellowship even more vital.
"You can't live in a secular society faithfully and strongly if you're not in a community of those who love Christ," he said. "They are a constant source of strength and wisdom and support and love, and to be in such a community is one of the great joys and blessings of Christian life."
'We don't have to prove anything'
A section in the third chapter of Morrison's book delves into the many setbacks and failures he has suffered, starting with when he was fired from his job in the country's tourism agency during his late 30s. He claims he was fired for political reasons by then-Prime Minister John Howard, with whom he had a good relationship and whose campaign he worked for.
The experience, he writes, was "humiliating and soul destroying," but revealed to him how much he was placing his self-worth in his own accomplishments instead of in God's unconditional love for him.
"We don't have to prove anything to God, even the things we think we are doing for Him," Morrison writes. "God's love has nothing to do with what we think we can offer. He loves us just as we are, in all our brokenness."
"God's love is transformational if you allow it to be. It's one thing to accept it; it's entirely another to let it transform you and allow you to see yourself through His eyes instead of through the perspective of what you have or haven't accomplished."
That lesson would prove invaluable throughout the rest of his life and steel him to experience other losses, including ultimately losing reelection as prime minister in 2022. He writes that while some politicians who lose begin to crave the "relevance" they lost, he is free from such an "affliction."
Morrison suggested to CP that one of the greatest lessons he has learned is God's faithfulness regardless of what vocation to which he is called in the different seasons of his life.
"I just found God faithful to me in every walk of life, whether it was as prime minister, as a treasurer, as a cabinet minister, a member of parliament, a father, senior chief executive, all these sorts of things that I've done over the course of my life," he said.
"He's always been there with me, and that's really what I'm trying to say. It doesn't matter what your vocation is, what job you have, what you're doing in life. The prize is Christ and His presence. That's what will sustain you always in everything."
