Saturday 15 December 2007

Christianity is Not a Panacea

For the last few months, for one reason or another, I have been going through a Difficult Time. Friends have been great in varying measures and without them, I don’t know where I’d be.

However, I have been amazed at some of the beliefs that have been unearthed through friends trying to give me words of comfort.

Let me give you an example. One of the exhausting motifs of the last 12 months has been my relentless failure to find full-time employment following UCCF. The rollercoaster of hope built by getting to the interview stage (17 times now) followed by the plummet of disappointment when again I am thanked for applying and told that my performance at interview was exemplary, but that one other candidate was better qualified and had more experienced than me, has been wearing to say the least and has gently eroded my confidence and my bank balance.

More than one friend has said to me in response, ‘God has just the right job for you, you just haven’t found it yet’. This was said lovingly, and with a real desire to restore hope, and a genuine belief in its truth. But I am incredulous.

Where has the idea come from that for Christians, if we wait long enough, everything will turn out just fine? That a little while longer, or just that smidge more faith, will give us just the perfect little happy ending? When did we decide that Romans 8:28 was authored by Walt Disney?

Look around you at your Christian community – how many Hollywood endings do you see? How many people in perfect situations that are just right for them?

I’m not saying that life is a crock of crap for everyone, that’s clearly not true either, but neither is this idea that because we believe in God, we will either be free from the big pains of life, or the little irritating shitty little things that seem to happen for no reason, and that deny the description of ‘just right’ whatever sphere they happen to be in.

Perhaps the most eye-opening thing about hearing all this from some of my friends is that I have bought into it too. Even though I am one of the most cynical Christians I know, I’ve become aware that the reason my response to suffering (whether it’s small-scale but slowly draining like the job situation, or large-scale and heart-wrecking like my perpetual relationship situation) is rage. I am just so angry with God that all of this isn’t easier than it is. That now that I have given everything to him, I still have hot water that cuts out, or bills that I didn’t expect but can’t pay, or loneliness, or unemployment, or friends that cut themselves up literally and metaphorically, or that people die, or miscarry or get Alzheimer’s and there just isn’t anything I can do to help. Those things just don’t seem to fit.

Surely we should be able to say to those who are not Christians, ‘Look! Follow Jesus and you will have a life like mine!’ without feeling the need to shove all the pain and disappointment and unanswered prayer into some big cupboard that gets opened up when they’ve been a Christian a little while, and everything comes crashing down off the top shelf onto their heads.

We know that this should never be what we sell, that’s why we bang on about the evils of the prosperity gospel. We know that becoming a Christian is not about converting to a rosy life of ease and laughter, because we are happy to quote things about ‘taking up your cross’. We would all, and perhaps me especially, readily tell you that often in this life following Jesus means suffering.

So why am I so surprised and angry?

I have felt pressure from friends recently (and sometimes from my own internal promptings) to stop being so angry and disappointed and be thankful for what I’ve got. And it’s true that I have a great deal to be thankful for. The 365 project was very helpful for someone of my personality, and I’ve recently started it again over text with a friend, because it’s good for me to remember to be thankful everyday.

But I’ve also been told repeatedly that ‘Christians should be joyful’. My response to this has been further rage; at other Christians for not understanding my pain, and at God again, for not giving me something that is a clear expectation from scripture.

I have felt that the pressure to be thankful and to experience joy, comes from an expectation that I ought to shrink my disappointments, my pain and my genuine authentic responses.

I don’t think this is the answer.

God knows my true heart reaction to these situations, so pretending that my reactions are different is a waste of time. All through the Bible Christians have responded to suffering by spilling out their anger and tiny human understanding at him;

“How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
There is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”

Habakkuk 1:1-4 for example.

That is not slapping on a smile over the crap and saying that it’s all OK really because Jesus loves me. Habakkuk is a person with faith who just cannot see the mind of God in his mess and is authentically yelling out his fear and confusion to him. I am relieved that God puts passages like this in the Bible. It helps me not to be afraid that I will scare him off with my honesty.

So trying to pretend my problems are smaller than they are is not the answer here. Trying to pretend my response to them (to the pain and problems themselves as opposed to the bigger picture) is joy and gratitude is inauthentic. So what can I do?

I had a conversation with Priss last night about a comparatively small issue. She told me something she had recently learned and articulated;

“I was challenged to remember to make Jesus lord over everything. Wanting him first, even if that meant never having a well paid job or remaining single, not getting my own house, having no friends... etc.”

She shocked me with that. She shocked me by showing me how many millions of miles I am away from making a statement like that. That in fact I have managed to turn that attitude upside down. I realised that my misguided belief that God ought to give me everything I want because I’m his, had made me into this big greedy monster making demands, while God was my little servant, expected to feed me with things and if he didn’t, he incurred my rightful rage. What an ugly image.

Importantly, that does not mean that my needs and desires are not legitimate. It does not mean that my lack of them is not a real deficit. It does not mean that I ‘ought to be glad’ that things are hard.

It does not mean I should pretend that all of this is small.

It does mean I should remember that God is BIG.

Priss (and the Holy Spirit!) stretched my tiny butler God and showed me a glimpse of his greatness and his rightful place as Lord over everything. This is not then, a begrudging acquiescence that I have to submit to him, but a wonderful realisation that his bigness means that I can trust him to be big enough to carry me through the pain, the disappointment, all the rest.

Lately I’ve been trying to hold on to truths of him guiding me by his right hand, but I’ve been hating the places he’s taken me and wanted to shake myself free. I’ve now caught a glimpse of how powerful that right hand is. I hate to say it, but one of my most hated Christian kids songs has helped me here (I mostly hate it because English Christians seem to always insist on singing it inexplicably in an American accent. Since when did we worship Gad?):

Our God is a great big God
Our God is a great big God
Our God is a great big God
And he holds us in his hands.

This is TRUE and unbelievably for someone who hates kids songs, is a truth that helps me in the depths of my adult pain.

If Jesus is Lord of my life, I won’t demand from him. If he’s really Lord of all of it, I will trust him with it. I will not try to wriggle out of that great big hand, but I will rest in it. I might cry, I might shout, I might fall apart in the middle of it. But I will trust that it carries me, instead of assuming that it just pushes me where I don’t want to go, and takes away the things I want.

I have a long way to go still before I can say that this is how I am actually living my life, but at least I am on my way there. I feel I have a little way to go before I can say with authenticity that my response is joy, but at least I know that joy in suffering is possible (Romans 5 and countless others, promise me that) and so I can hope for that promise. Habakkuk begins with rage and confusion, but it ends like this:

“Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
He enables me to go on to the heights.”

I think I am somewhere between chapter 1 and chapter 3 of Habakkuk at the moment. I am feeling the loss of the olives, the sheep and the grapes. I am trying to learn not to expect them, while acknowledging the pain of their absence, and I am trying to learn and hold onto the hope, that the bigness of God will lead to joy in the heights, even if it takes me a little while to get there.

1 comment:

OddBabble said...

I am not really allowed post on my blog until I finish my damned thesis but this post was so good and brilliant and needed that I was sorely tempted to just write a one word entry: READ, that would link to it.

By zoomtard, at Sat Dec 15, 05:54:00 PM 2007

Yes,Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
You know the rest.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

By Peach, at Sun Dec 16, 12:15:00 PM 2007

I just wanted to say thanks for this wonderful post. I started to read it yesterday and only finished it there now ;)You articulated a lot of what I have been thinking about lately and have been struggling with in my own life.I have realised that as soon as I have the thought that 'I deserve such and such', I am maybe treading on dodgy ground. Thanks again.

By Reimagining, at Sun Dec 16, 06:44:00 PM 2007

Thanks for posting this OddBabble. I love Habbakuk. I find it helpful to keep remembering that Romans 8.28 is far better than we imagine (= vv.29-30) but is worked out through vv.18-27 - suffering, groaning, futility, frustration, hope, endurance. I so easily slip into swapping them - fine with Jesus in control of the not-yet, if I can just be in control of this little teensy bit of the now... um thanks for posting anyway; challenging.

By étrangère, at Mon Dec 17, 12:08:00 AM 2007

Thanks OddBabble, a breath of fresh air. Need to sit and think now

By Sarah, at Mon Dec 17, 02:37:00 PM 2007

Thank you for sharing. Bloody good stuff, and actually shot-through with a great deal of hope.

What am I, and where am I?
Strange myself and paths appear;
Scarce can lift a thought on high,
Or drop one heart feeling tear.

Yet I feel I'm not at home,
But know not which way to move:
Lest I farther yet should roam
From my blessed love.

Some small glimmering light I have,
Yet too dark to see my way;
Jesus' presence still I crave;
When, O when will it be day?

Is the evening time at hand?
Will it then indeed be light?
Will the sun its beams extend,
To chase away the night?

Will the Lord indeed appear,
Give me light and joy and rest,
Drive away my gloomy fear,
Draw me to his lovely breast?

Then his love is rich and free;
Jesus, let me feel its power,
And my soul will cling to thee,
Love and praise thee and adore.

(William Gadsby, 1773-1844)

Listen here: http://www.redmountainchurch.org/rmm/alb/TGPclips/track08.mp3

By Daniel, at Mon Dec 17, 02:56:00 PM 2007

Really, really, REALLY...Thank you xxx

By Welshie, at Mon Dec 17, 09:35:00 PM 2007

:-)
Nothing to add to the above except for a few kisses.xxx

By becci brown, at Sat Dec 22, 10:52:00 PM 2007

What happens when you hit this kind of impasse mid-365ing...?! Does 365 have a flaw in not allowing the expression of frustration in its search to find the good in a day? I'm probably thinking waaaay too deeply about 365, yet struggle to post 'this was great' when 'this was rubbish' is such a part of the day too. And now I'm just thinking 'out loud' on someone else's blog so its not so easily linked to mine!!!

By Rachel's Small Corner, at Wed Jan 16, 10:32:00 PM 2008

Hi Rachel,
I know what you mean about the 365. When I was doing mine, friends said that they could tell when things were rubbish, even though you're only allowed to put positive things. You can 'hear' it in the tone I guess. I do think that the 365 is MOST helpful when it's a struggle to be thankful though. Far from being a flaw, I think that's its purpose. When everything looks black, it's a discipline to find the light, but I think it's one we have a duty towards as Christians (speaking as a glass-quarter-empty-Christian) because we ALWAYS serve a good God.
The purpose of the 365 is clear in that it is an intentional searching for the good. It doesn't pretend that this is the whole picture. It's up to the reader I guess to bear this in mind as they read.

By OddBabble, at Thu Jan 17, 11:33:00 AM 2008

Thank-you. I've recently been learning to thank God in all circumstances, and praise Him before everything. It's good to know I'm not alone in this lesson. The entire direction of my life is changing at the moment, and I have uncertainty all around. I have been off sick for six months with a knee injury. I may not be able to go back to the same job again. But I have to trust that God is still in control - if I don't, what can I trust in? I shall have to go and reread Habbukak now. Thank-you again.

By Jenny, at Fri May 02, 01:33:00 PM 2008

Fiona Merrick at 10:32pm December 17

I really appreciated and empathised with this note. Thank you Barney for your honesty, insights and willingness to share. It makes my notes look pretty pointless and frivolous by comparison! And it's challenged me regarding the things I say to struggling and suffering Christian friends, and the things I tell myself when things are poo. You are very articulate and wise xxx

OddBabble at 10:38pm December 17

Thanks Merrick! xxx

Sarah Ninnis at 4:45pm December 18

Amen to that...just read it on your blog, if i wasn't sitting in an office I'd have cried! You have a rare, raw and real ability to express your thoughts and I love that. Thanks for articulating what i haven't been able to xxx

Isabel Walker at 5:43pm December 20

Hey OddBabble

Thank you for your encouragement this past term and I love how real you are in this blog-(is relateable). It is a testimony of faith. Romans 5 is wot is stuck with me amongst others for passages weve looked at together this term-perseverance, endurance and character and hope of heaven. And the theme that GOD IS BIG.

love issyx

Isabel Walker at 5:47pm December 20

a testimony of faith -wot i mean is that in midst of it all you recognise (kids song) OUR GOD is a great BIG GOD who holds us in His hands. :)

Claire Jones at 7:59pm December 20

Really really glad I read that.

:)