It started a while ago, if I'm being honest.
For a while I could soothe the pain of my floundering heart with music by All Sons and Daughters. For a while a good conversation with a friend was enough to remind me that not all was darkness and selfishness. For a while the knowledge that I was communing with brothers and sisters was encouragement enough to keep me afloat. For a while the trappings of religion masked the true state of my heart.
And then none of it was enough. I was falling, and there was no good reason for it. In my mind, I was no longer good enough for anyone, and no one was good enough for me. I was wholly other. I was unreachable. I was falling. Falling out of favor, out of grace, out of standing as a daughter of God. I was an epic failure; maybe I never really believed to begin with.
The only place I was understood was the internet. Every once in a while someone on the internet would write something beautiful, something that would touch my soul, reminding me that even if everyone I know in my personal life cannot understand the depths of my despair, even if everyone judges me for my questions about homosexuality and creation, even if every last one of my friends rejects me as a false prophet, at least I'll still have the blogging world. At least I'll still have Renovatus Church's podcasts. At least I'll still have twitter. Oh, twitter.
You see, I have a problem. I was raised in the church. I never didn't believe. One of my first memories is "praying the prayer." I grew up on hymns like "Into my Heart" and "Jesus Loves Me." I have lived an idyllic life, marred only by relational difficulties here and there. I've never fallen off the deep end, never experienced substance abuse, never an alcoholic, never this, never that. You name the taboo thing, I've probably not done it.
And so I don't have a testimony. Which is fine on the good days. But on the dark days, the days when I don't have any excuse for the darkness in my soul, the days when I want to reject everything I was raised to believe? On those days my upbringing is my biggest stumbling block. On those days it drags me under.
I couldn't hear Jesus anymore. I figured I'd never really heard him. I wondered if He cared. If he existed. I wondered if everything I was raised to believe was slightly off the mark. I wondered if the progressive Christian bloggers I follow were maybe right. I wondered if maybe they were wrong and my upbringing was right. I tried to think it all out.
And I fell. On my face. Every week small group got more difficult for me. Every week the storm became larger, the fall out more intense. By the end of small group two days ago, I wondered if maybe I would never ever go back. They were too good for me, had it together, believed things I could never believe. They heard from God, they served God. And then there was me, snickering in the back row about the ridiculous things the guy on the screen was saying. There was me, refusing to take part in the Sunday School answers. There was me, feeling marginalized and disregarded. I considered leaving church altogether. Taking a break. A "me and Jesus" break. I needed it so badly, I thought. I needed to figure out what I believed in isolation from all the voices. The internet voices and the in real life voices. I was drowning in a desert. Alone in a crowd.
The perfect storm.
I clung to the belief that Jesus was the only answer. That He was big enough for my failing heart, for my anger, for my cyncism, for my questions, for my sadness. That He would come through.
A few days ago, I began reading a book called Prototype: What Happens When You Discover You're More Like Jesus Than You Think by Jonathan Martin. I read it because it was written by the guy who pastors Renovatus Church, and I've been listening to his sermons religiously (no pun intended). I had pretty low expectations, to be honest. It seemed too much like those other Christian books, like the Shack, or Crazy Love. Surfacey books that didn't really change anything for me. They say great things, sure, and then you move on with your life.
I read the book anyway. Actually, to be more accurate, I'm still working on it. I only have like 1.5 chapters left, though, so I'm not jumping the gun too much. I hope.
Jonathan Martin didn't really change anything for me, for the record. Oh, the book is nice and all. There are some pretty epic quotes. The book soothed my frazzled nerves yesterday when I needed it most. His chapter entitled Obscurity spoke into my life with an accuracy that was unnerving to say the least.
But none of that was anything until Jesus came.
He came in the most unexpected of ways (doesn't He always?), and for once in my life I was listening.
I got off work tonight and came home, but not before stopping at Sonic for the supper of champions, a java chiller and mozzarella sticks (I need to be severely chastised for my nutritional choices). I watched some online tv. It was getting to be almost eight o'clock. The sun was still up.
And I realized that I needed some "wilderness" time (a theme in Prototype). I grabbed my kindle and my journal and a blanket and headed for the waterfront here in town, after deciding that it was entirely financially irresponsible to drive to Fernandina twice in one week for the soul purpose of walking by the actual ocean.
I hopped in my car, and turned on the radio. Christian radio. I only heard one phrase, and to be honest, don't quote me that this was even what was said: "The rate of failed marriage in the United States breaks my heart." And the epiphany hit me like God screaming at me from heaven in the most beautiful of whispers: My daughter, when you love from above, you are not loving. My daughter, religion is the attempt to make oneself like God. Failed religion is the inevitable fall from godhood.
Here's the thing. I didn't listen to any more of that radio station than that one sentence. I reacted and in a moment turned it off. The point is that so often we judge what is and is not sin from above. We assume a religious posture of "reformedness" and work to make the rest of the world as good as us.
We forget what we are.
Broken sinners. Misfits. Liars. Cynics. Murderers at heart. Sinners. Sinners. Sinners.
And because we do not remember the depths from which Christ rescued us, our attempts at reform fail. Our love is perceived (and rightfully so) as judgement. The world sees us as worse than the world. As perverters, and the Church as a joke.
And, my friends, they're right.
As I arrived at the waterfront this evening just as the sun was setting, I started writing furiously in my journal the things that were occurring to me at a rather frightening pace:
To follow Jesus is to find your only value in Him - to know the depth of your brokenness and the wildness of His love. All good works not springing from this are dead.
How do I live this out in real life? How do I act as a prophet without being the very thing I cry out against? By not forgetting for a second where I come from. A lost, broken, judgemental place. A place where I doubt, strike out, fall away. A place where in an instant I join the mockers.
Do I cry out against sin? Absolutely. What do I cry? You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.
And then I walked back to my car. As I was walking, something occurred to me. With the exception of a beautiful moment where I sang the old chorus "I Love You Lord" into the stillness of the gathering dusk, I never once prayed. I never once opened my Bible. When I realized this, I almost discredited my whole time out at the waterfront as a waste. I almost apologized to God for not talking to Him.
And then He spoke one last time. He said:
My daughter, I am so glad you didn't talk. I am so glad you were silent enough to hear me.
My friends, God is good.
Out of the wilderness, He speaks.
No comments:
Post a Comment