Acknowledging my lack of pure faith has opened a door to a kind of humble thankfulness that I didn't know was missing before. To realize that apart from God, even something as simple as faith isn't truly possible has taken my defeated thoughts and added hope - and I haven't seen that around these parts in a very long time.
For awhile I've believed (without really knowing it) that Christianity replaced my humanity and made it easier to handle the oh-so-common struggles that pester everyone. When life got difficult, I muddled through without really attempting to alleviate my burden onto Him other than the occasional shouting match or sob-fest. And maybe my so-called strength was enough to pull me through in the past but once it cut a bit too close to the heart I hit a wall. All the methods I'd used before not only weren't working to get me through but were plunging the knife deeper with each attempt. I kept pushing and pushing... and the wound grew. It never occured to me that the problem was as much my approach as the actual problem. I was all talk when it came to trusting God but when the rubber met the road and I was called to live up to all I said, I couldn't. I still can't. My struggles seem so simple and the solution is so clear but my humanness holds me back.
But now I see it. I no longer believe I'm filled with an unshakeable, 100% rock-solid trust. I know that even though I want to be all faithful, all the time, I'm not. I've relied on my own pitiful strength because I didn't think the faith I did have would be enough. Or, rather, I didn't think God would make up the difference when my faith fell short.
Pain is not evidence that I'm going the wrong way; it's nothing more than a consequence of life. And faith isn't the anaesthetic that numbs the ache - it's the hope that comes from knowing that there is more on the other side. Trusting God won't make the mountains fall but it will give me the stamina to climb every last one in my path.
What I thought was faith wasn't and that realization has pushed me back to Start. I've been left empty-handed and all the things that I thought made me "better" have been stripped from my grasp. I'm standing - naked, useless, and humiliated - with all that I prided myself on around my ankles. It's all nothing more than bullshit and it doesn't mean anything, not to Him. I literally have nothing to give that He needs. But I have something He wants.
"There. Now THIS I can work with."
To say thanks
Spiritual fraud
God and I had a fight last night. I lost, much to my surprise.
For the past year my question has been "Why can't I give it up? How is that I continue to struggle with the illusion of control?" If know that A) God is ultimately the one in control and B) what He has in store is 900 gazillion times better than anything I could plan, why am I still so stubbornly refusing to acknowledge my own powerlessness?
I don't trust God. It's as simple as that. My faith, as it stands, is insufficient to sustain the "correct" actions that Christianity promotes. My humanity taints and dilutes the innocent trust that faith necessitates and my ability to follow the narrow path suffers as a consequence. For the past twenty-six years I've allowed my heart to gather and collect bitterness, cynicism and doubt from a sad little sense of self-entitlement. "Somehow, life owes me a crabmeat salad." And now the result is the stunted growth of a heart that desperately wants to chase the freedom of total abandon and trust yet doesn't even know how to try.
The truth is that I'm hopeless. I can't do anything right of my own volition because my present is colored by the heartbreak in my past. I've allowed negativity to creep up and extinguish every flame that even threatens to burn. I am so utterly alone on an island I built, stocked and swam to. I can not manage to give up because a part of my brain questions whether anyone or anything will truly be there to catch me. It all falls on my shoulders. And I can't sustain it. I'm not meant to.
"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
"And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.""
Faith isn't even sustainable apart from Him. My eyes are from this world and they are blinded by everything they've seen. Where my human strength causes me to fall short of my lofty goals Christ meets me. Once again, I am saved.
A pause for grace:
I actually have a more substantial (RE: pompous and long-winded) post that I'm working on. In the meantime, though, I'm rereading Brennan Manning's "The Ragamuffin Gospel" and this line hit me hard in the breadbasket:
"When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer."
Not only is it comforting to find out I'm not alone, but it's a relief to hear such words and realize that God doesn't intend for "good" people to keep Him company in heaven. If He did, He'd be pretty lonely.
