following Christ

The last week or so has been difficult.  I’ve been fighting back despair and depression, trying so desperately to not let the darkness overtake me.  I want to be happy and live a joyful life, but sometimes that seems so impossible.

I thought maybe it was the move.  In some ways that is probably part of it.  There’s something so invigorating about stepping outside in a place you love.

I thought maybe it was the lack of purpose in life without homework taking up at least a small place in my mind at all times.  And that’s probably part of it.  There’s something so scary about a life where I come home from work with nothing that I need to do.

More than either of those things, though, I think I’m sad because I feel like I’m not really following Jesus.

Growing up, I had times of doubt.  I would wonder if the Bible was really true, or if God really did love me.  Stuff like that.  In college, I doubted the whole existence of God.  I wrestled with the role of emotion in worship.  I worked through all of that and finally came back to a place of mental equilibrium.

The thing is, I’ve been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he writes to a place in my soul that I had never really fully visited before: the place that is afraid to take the leap.

He writes in Ethics: “‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’ (Matt. 7.1). This is not an exhortation to prudence and forbearance in passing judgement on one’s fellow-men, such as was also recognized by the Pharisees.  It is a blow struck at the heart of the man who knows good and evil.  It is the word of Him who speaks by virtue of his unity with God, who came not to condemn but to save (John 3.17).  For man in the state of disunion good consists in passing judgement, and the ultimate criterion is man himself.  Knowing good and evil, man is essentially a judge.  As a judge he is like God, except that every judgement he delivers falls back upon himself.  In attacking man as a judge Jesus is demanding the conversion of his entire being, and He shows that precisely in the extreme realization of his good he is ungodly and a sinner.  Jesus demands that the knowledge of good and evil be overcome; He demands unity with God.  Judgement passed on another man always presupposes disunion with him; it is an obstacle to action.  But the good of which Jesus speaks consists entirely in action and not in judgement.” (34)

It’s so easy to read books, to make judgments between good and evil.  It’s so easy to make academic attempts at morality.  God calls me to follow, though.  He calls me to action.  To death to myself.  To make a clean break with the former me and to simply follow.

I know how to be religious.  I know the right words, I know the songs, and I know the prayers.  What I am no longer so sure I know, however, is how to follow.

I’m realizing more and more how little good a prayer prayed is, how little good a religious upbringing is, how little good good intentions do.

Without death, it’s all an exercise in futility.