I know that everyone comes to a point in their lives with their relationship with God where they want to just throw their hands up and say, "F*** it - that's it... No more - I'm done." Mine came over a week ago, and as hard as I tried to be a non-believer, it didn't work. Damnit.
Are you shocked? I am. Why did I do it? Well, it's a long story, but it basically comes down to the frustrations of seeing every one of my family members declare they want nothing to do with God, with "Christianity", or especially, and I'm guilty here too - with Christians in general. It's all sort of a cumulative effect - being burned by people who are in positions of spiritual leadership and authority, being accused of things that you'd not only NEVER think to do, let alone accomplish the act, being railroaded into doing things that go against your nature because you felt you had no choice, and finally, being horribly judged by people who are SUPPOSED to love you MORE than judge you, and especially trying to hang on to my faith when I feel completely alone, and judged for wanting to keep the flame alive.
It finally came to a head the other night, and I decided that nothing, or more specifically, NO ONE is worth the hell and pain I'm going through trying to hold on to a dying flame. I've watched as all of my kids have expressed their disdain and disgust with "...Christians" who are nothing more than judgmental a**holes with nothing better to do than meddle in others lives - instead of looking after the proverbial "log" in their own eyes." I've seen my beloved's faith get rocked to the point where she trusts NO ONE who calls themselves a believer... and I've seen something that used to be such an amazingly "uniting" aspect of our relationship die on the vine.
Frankly, it has pissed me off.
And by way of a disclaimer, I know we're not pure as the driven snow, and we've had our times of failure, but I can say with a VERY clear conscience, that those times of failure came only after doing all we could to live with integrity and honesty, and finally no longer being able to control our hurt, disgust, disbelief and anger.
So, while I didn't give God the finger - as it were, I did pack up all my books and notes, and put them on the shelf - FULLY intending on getting boxes and putting them away, or throwing them all away, and no longer believing. While the thought of throwing out any book bothers me, I was willing to 86 all my bibles, commentaries, studies, and literally ANY thing that may have something to do with Christianity. In my mind, KARMA - doing unto others as I'd want them to do to me - was going to be the behavior of the day, but completely without God. No more. No how. No way.
Then, I made the mistake of reading something I wrote some time ago... Here on this blog in fact. Earlier this year I wrote an entry called, "Just HOW important is faith?" which contained the scripture reference from Isaiah 7:9 which says, "Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm."
DAMNIT God! WHY did you say that? WHY did I write that? WHY did I read that? ARGHHHH!
I read that passage over and over... and couldn't get it out my head. "Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm." And then the internal arguments started: "God? Unless MY faith is firm? WHAT?" "Why don't YOU make MY faith firm?" "Why do I have to have firm faith?" "Why don't YOU just make my faith firm?" "My faith is in the toilet... how's that for firm?"
And yet, the words still spoke to my hurting, defiant, pain-filled, and angry heart - "Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm." Shit. That means it's a failing in ME! That means that in spite of everything that's hurt me, and everything that's made me angry, and everything that's grieved my heart, it's still up to me to keep my faith alive - and "established" as some translations say. I didn't like that thought. Inside of me I began making excuses... "It's too much to ask at this point..." "What good is being the only one in my family who is trying?" "What good does having firm faith do, when people who are clearly lacking in faith, morals, humility, and honestly are still prospering and seeing success in their lives?" "What's in it for me?"
I KNOW I'm not alone in feeling like this... and yet, "Unless your faith is firm..." It makes me want to scream out, "SHUT UP GOD! - HOW COULD YOU KNOW OR UNDERSTAND?" "YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT IT IS I'M GOING THROUGH, LET ALONE TALKING ABOUT!"
And yet, the passage remained, stubbornly replaying like a bad audio loop, "unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm." Ouch. And even more painful was the realization that He CAN possibly know. He CAN understand. And even worse, He cares that I'm in this crisis. And, if that's true, then I have a responsibility to respond to Him... and I have a need to make my faith firm. Oh crap. Another painful round of confession and repentance is in my future. I hate that.
This isn't the first time my own words have been used against me. And it likely won't be the last either - sad to say. So last night I pulled my favorite bible down from the shelf where it had been relegated to sit until I threw it away, and flipped it open to Isaiah, and had to eat a little crow, and try to wipe some spiritual "egg" off my face. Exactly HOW to firm up my faith isn't really clear to me - as there is no magic bullet to do so - but I know there are things that build faith - and one of them isn't throwing a temper-tantrum when life is handing me "faith firming" turds that taste like gravel in my mouth, or causing me more pain than I want to deal with.
So I wearily climbed back on the horse last night. God and I haven't had the "woodshed" moment yet, but I know it's coming. I know I deserve it. And who knows, maybe my butt will be firm enough that it won't hurt as bad as everything did to drive me to this point.
"Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm."
Abba, I believe. Help my unbelief - PLEASE.
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