“Dear God”

Trust

“I’m supposed to trust You, but I’m having a hard time doing so. Especially when it comes to the area of relationships.

I know I’m supposed to only rely on You, but to be brutally honest (and in doing so fear I’m risking your disapproval): You’re not here to give me a hug, to cook me dinner, to massage my feet after a long day. At this time I need something physical, tangible: someone I can touch and feel and see. I’m a tactile person.

And I have a hard time trusting You’ll bring someone into my life because I’m not sure it’s part of Your plan for me. And I’d hate for it not to be part of Your plan for me. Perhaps I’d be better off doing it alone?

Yet personal history shows I’m having no luck in that area. And I’m tired of taking chances, making moves and having them rejected. In the last week alone I’ve given out my phone number to a guy friend I like – and he’s not called, and have added one I’ve recently met as a Facebook friend – and had that rejected. There’s only so much a girl can take!

And I know I’m supposed to look to You to fulfil my needs of love, but I’m not sure I can. And I’m not sure I can ever see a time when I can. And that’s painfully, painfully difficult. Something I want so badly is just out of reach for me. It’s like the diamonds are locked away behind the glass – but I can’t see there’s glass there and keep hurting myself trying to get through it.

Lord, Father, Abba… I can’t see a way through this.”

Fulfilment

I’ve been thinking about fulfilment recently. Below is a short stream of conciousness on it.

I’ve been enjoying volunteering as a first aider with St John Ambulance. I feel fulfilled through helping people: I feel I’ve maybe found a place to be, found my gifting.

But… is it wrong to get my purpose from that?

Only if it becomes the sole centre of my purpose.

How do I stop it becoming the sole centre of my purpose, my fulfilment?

By giving the glory to God. By being thankful for the gifting He has given me. By not taking for granted these new skills I have learned and am using. By remaining humble, not becoming prideful.

I’m off out again tomorrow. I have the week off work (what bliss it was to wake up on a Monday morning and not have to get up!) and have chosen to spend one of those days doing first aid. Or at least sitting around waiting for people to injure themselves!

Oh, and there’s a guy… I know, there’s always a guy. But I’m saying no more in case I jinx it. Not that I believe in that,  it’s more I don’t want to obsess TOO much, and if I put it down in black and white it becomes ‘out there’. This one I’m keeping to myself.

For now…

Deconstructing

tr.v. de·con·struct·ed, de·con·struct·ing, de·con·structs

1. To break down into components; dismantle.

2. To write about or analyze (a literary text, for example), following the tenets of deconstruction.

Interesting – I started this post back in April, when I decided I needed to deconstruct church. It’s taken me a while to get to a place I think is OK.

The point of deconstructing church was that it just wasn’t ‘doing it’ for me any more. I don’t mean that in a selfish, individualistic sense, but in the sense I wasn’t meeting God there, it wasn’t enabling me or equiping me for my week ahead. Or even the rest of my Sunday. And I cracked, which you’ll know if you’ve been reading for a while.

But in the last month or two I’ve finally set church free from my expectations. Which makes it easier for me to go. And also less burdensome – I also feel less guilty when I miss services too.

Church has now become that place where I do community. I go, I chat, I talk to people afterwards. I maintain and build friendships.

It’s also where I take part in communal worship.

But it’s not where I get my support from. It’s not the place that ’sends me out’ into my week. I’m not entirely sure where that is yet, but I’m working on that. I have friends I can call on, pray with, or who pray for me. I plan to join a homegroup, but that’s a few months ahead because of other commitment.

• St John Ambulance. After all, the church can only do what it has the resources – money, people, skills, time – to do, and at the moment, there’s little for me to get involved in. St John Ambulance is practical and is community-based. It’s not overtly Christian, but why should everything we do be? There shouldn’t be this sacred-secular divided that puts everything we do into one of two camps. We are called to live lives of workship daily, diong what we do to show love to others.
• Street Pastors. I hope to speak to some people in a month or so once it’s up and running locally and get on the training that starts in March.
• Refugee centre. Although all I do is sit on the sub-committee, I’ve asked if I could ’sponsor a student’ and am thinking of other ideas for raising money and awareness of the work they’re doing there.

It’s still work-in-progress, but that’s a life-long process! I think it’s going well so far, and it feels much better to have freed myself from the expectations of myself and of others! That said, yesterday I did Sunday School for the 3 & 4-year-olds. Little terrors – they are rather cute!

Questioning

For the last few years I’ve been involved in a Christian studies course called Workshop. I(n fact, if you live in the UK and are anywhere near London, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol or Birmingham, and you’re interested in exploring and questioning faith more, do check it out.)

We had a team prep/social day today, and we were discussing why more people aren’t interested in Workshop at the moment. Whether it’s a credit crunch thing, whether people don’t want to explore their faith more, whether they’re going to more ‘mainstream’ courses or colleges. Or, as I proposed: maybe they’re too scared to step outside their Christian bubble and risk their whole faith falling apart when something they’ve steadfastly believed in for years comes crashing down around them.

I can understand that’s scary. But surely living in a little bubble, never questioning, never doubting, not allowing ourselves to ask God “Why?” is scarier. To me that seems so much less real.

Even though I wonder about my faith at the moment, because I’m not in that happy clappy evangelical high all the time, I’d rather be where I am now than where I was, when I was a happy clappy evangelical clone who believed everything they were told.

One of the things I loved about The Shack (S, you were right, it’s great – I should have got it when you started raving about it and been ahead of the curve), was that God accepted, felt and heard Mac’s questioning and pain. God didn’t dismiss Mac for the pain he’d been through; didn’t disown him for his anger and drifting away. Despite – or because of? – that, God wanted to get closer to Mac. God didn’t have pat answers. In a way it reminded me of Job, when God tells Job about the bigger picture. God acknowledged Mac’s pain, grieved with him: but reminded him that a mere human could not see the bigger picture.

I think we forget that. Sure life hurts. Sometimes it’s an absolute tragedy. In the grand scheme of things, despite all my moaning, I have it pretty easy. I am grateful I have it as easy as I do. Others have more reason to shake an angry fist at God and shout “WHY?!” But we can’t see the bigger picture. And sometimes we’re too quick to put the blame on God for things. He gave us free will and we choose to abuse it. And often others suffer the consequences of that. Which seems so much more unfair. (Update: Interesting ‘toon from ASBO Jesus on this very topic.)

But the more I spend time with people, the more I get to know them, the more I realise that we can have peace. I have 2 friends I know through Workshop who have cancer. And they both have a strength and peace about it that comes from a stronger faith and relationship with God than what I have. I admire them. And I just hope I can develop that kind of faith they have, so when I face a similar difficult time I will have that trust in God.

Moving off on a slight tangent now. The other thing I loved about The Shack was that Jesus was just how I picture Him in my mind!

Direction

Thanks, everyone, for all your supportive and encouraging comments. I’m actually feeling OK at the moment. I think I might be a little high – the pills can make you a bit hyper at first. But I think also, it’s the relief of finally, after years of struggling, holding my hands up and saying “I can’t cope!”

And the doctor has validated it. Which now gives me permission to say to people that I’m depressed, sometimes I just can’t cope and need to take a time out, or talk it through. Why it took burning myself to do that, I don’t know! Putting safety nets in after you’ve fallen off is great for when you get back up again, but would have helped if they’d been in place the first time. Still, at least they’re being set up now.

I’m also high I think from passing some of the burden over to others. The doctor is taking control of some of this. Friends are praying and being supportive. I don’t have to fight it all on my own. In fact, I don’t have to fight it at all: I just have to face it and deal with it. And with counselling, I will deal with the issues. How I get past the feeling that I’m not worthy of anything, and hence why it’s taken me so long to get help. Why I think I’m unattractive and undesirable, and that the only way to get a guy is to sleep with him. Why I beat myself up everytime I “fail” at something, or make a mistake. Why I worry endlessly about things that might never happen.

Someone asked in one of the comments what has been happening with my spiritual direction. Honestly – nothing dramatic. Just little things that help me to realise that even if I might struggle to believe (and I think I need father’s prayer of Mark 9:24 “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”), God is still there.

Need to try and sleep now, otherwise if I can’t, after a few nights I’m going to need to crack open my emergency diazepam. Which I’m keeping for emergencies only. Which will hopefully mean I’ll never need them!

Atonement

How would you answer this guy?

more about "Atonement", posted with vodpod

Jim Wallis in London

Jim Wallis was over here in the UK, and I’m very grateful a friend let me know he would be talking a church.co.uk about his new book Seven Ways to Change the World.

A few nuggets. He didn’t tell us the 7 ways, and although I bought the book, I’ve not got that far, having found a bunch of friends there too, so went to the pub after.

• When asked what had been the things that had got him most into trouble: Going the places you’re not supposed to go, particularly as a white, middle class Christian. Walking past those invisible ‘No Trespassing!’ signs.
• The 2 big hungers in this world are for spirituality and social action. And the movement that combines both of this will set the world on fire.
• People will get excited about this different kind of faith.
• We’re not to just ignore bad news. Revival is the good news for bad news.
• Politics is broken.
• The most effective social movements – Great Awakenings – have happened when politics has failed to address a major social injustice, and have always had a spiritual foundation.
• Faith is what moves the mountains that are the seemingly impossible social injustices: poverty, trafficking, climate change, racial injustice, and so on.
• Social change requires commitment from each one of us. We need to start in our own lives, lead in our communities and that will make a difference on a bigger scale.
• It takes time. Wilberforce put his first Bill forward 9 times, and it took another 30 years before the slave trade itself was made illegal.
• Charles Finney ‘invented’ the altar call; and got each new Christian to sign up to the anti-slavery movement there and then.
• God needs to be real and personal to sustain the commitment and faith that moves mountains.
• Hope is a choice. Cynicism comes from unsuccessful attempts to bring about a change, but instead of persisting, cynicism gives up and declares nothing can ever change.
• Hope means believing in spite of the evidence. Then watching the evidence change.
• Bad religion calls out of us our bad stuff. We’ve seen a lot of bad religion. We want to see more good religion, which calls out of us our good stuff: compassion, action and so on..

Oh, and I didn’t realise he was married to the REAL Vicar of Dibley, one of the first women to be ordained in the UK, who went on to advise Richard Curtis and Dawn French on the show.

What kind of religion do you want?

Is was talking about religion over lunch with a colleague. I don’t do this often and I don’t jump in there, evangelistic guns a-blazing. Rather, I listen, try to get where they’re coming from, then pray for them. And for me in my relationship with them. Sounds like a cop-out, I know. But we’re not all born evangelists and apologists.

But the discussion -well, not really a discussion, more a diatribe (have I used that correctly?) of what he thought. Which was along the lines of if he was to follow a religion, it would probably be Islam, because at least their book was written by one guy, and they at least have rules which make sense and are good to live by. And has a huge focus on family and community.

Which made me think… the rules are what I find deeply UNattractive about Islam (well that and the suicide-bombing jihadists and the women-suppressing male leaders. But let’s not talk about the Crusades, that’s not what this post is about). The same with Judaism. But Islam has been hijacked too much for his liking – the true, original Islam is what he’d like. And he’s right. It has. In many areas, Islam has been hijacked by the prevailng culture. So much greatness came out of the early Islamic/Ottoman Empire: culture, science, the works.

Of course, Christianity’s not been hijacked, has it?! I (gently) put that point across. The incorporation of pagan/Roman/Greek ideals – the fact that in the West we celebrate Easter on a pagan feast day, not around Passover, which is when it actually happened. Christmas is another hijacked pagan feast day. Has it assimilated so much of other rituals and superstitions that Christianity has lost its own saltiness?

But there’s often an inner resistance to Christianity in the West. Apparently it’s downfall was the incorporation of materialism, individualism and capitalism, according to my colleague. You don’t say?! That and excommunication – I can’t believe people actually had the gall to do that! Because only a few centuries ago, to excommunicate someone was to say they no longer belonged to society; because society was Christendom, was the church, and to be no longer part of the church meant you had no place. You became a non-person in the eyes of society. I’m glad we’ve moved on from that.

But getting back to my point about rules: we have 2 as Christians.

1. Love God
2. Love others

Everything we do is a part of that (even though we f**k it up so often). It’s about the heart of what believe, the motivation. Not because we’re told to do so. And that’s what makes Christianity so freeing. But also, I guess, makes it look so woolly and wishy-washy. There’re no hard and fast do’s and don’t’s (other than the 10 Commandments, and we all get hung up over our neighbours ass when we talk about them) that you see in Islam. There’s been a certain amount of rhetoric over the last few years about why young men become attracted to Islam, become fundamentalistic suicide bombers. And there’s a lot to be said for an element of certainty in a world that can appear rootless, drifting and excluding to young men of a certain age and race. It can offer that family support in an age of broken families. It can offer a set of rules and codes of behaviour in a society that looks out only for Number One, and that thinks as long as you feel good about it, it’s OK.

But then there are my friends who believe in God. But that’s it. Jesus? Probably not, because He’s harder to get your head – and heart – around.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. There’s a ‘why?’, I guess. Why do you or I believe? And a ‘what?’: what do we believe?

What & Why. What a merry pair of bedfellows they make. I think they snuggle up with Faith, because without her, they don’t make sense on her own. And that’s what people so often miss or haven’t experience.

It’s all about Jesus

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5

Warning: this post shares a bit too much. Particularly for boys.

Divorcing the ‘Why’ from the ‘What’

Too often we divorce the why we do something from the what we do. Why do we do what we do to help others? Why are we Christians any different from the socially-conscious person who gives money, and time, and campaigns for a better life for others? What do we have that they don’t? What can we give that they can’t?

We do because we love. Because we love God. The two greatest commandments are to love God and love others as ourselves. In helping, we are loving others as we would wish to be loved. And we do it because of grace and love: God gives us so much that we want to redress the balance, right injustices, give to others that which was given to us as a gift.

And we do it because of Jesus.

But that doesn’t mean that we use doing as a means of evangelising. There should be no bargaining, no ‘if I help you, you must come to church’. We cannot bribe people into the Kingdom of God. But we should be ready with our answers to the question: “Why are you doing this for me?” Too often, social action is used to piggy-back evangelism onto it. As St. Francis of Assisi said, we should “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”

When we do out of love, God will honour that and open ears and eyes to hear about Him.