So the question is, how do I keep my faith with everything that’s going on? How do I keep joy when everything goes to hell? When I’m excellently stiff; when my hand is shaking like a leaf in a tornado; when I pull out my walking stick because I can’t stop leaning to the right and my knee wants to say “no” to walking every fifteen steps or so; how do I cry out to God instead of cursing his name?
As simple as the answer to these questions should be, the more I think about it, the more I realize that these are deep and rather difficult questions that actually bring to mind other questions that I first need to answer. Am I using this blog properly? God gave me a love of writing. Should I be using this blog as an inspiration to people? Better yet, should I be using this blog like one of those yellow flashing arrows you see in construction areas pointing to faith in Christ? Or should that arrow be neon, like the ones you see (forgive this analogy, dear reader) at strip clubs. Although, you’ve got to admit, that could be great fun. Just imagine it for a second. An arrow alternating between neon pink and neon green around the outside edges. This arrow is pointing straight toward the sky. On this arrow are words, also in neon, alternating between neon blue and neon purple. Instead of reading LIVE GIRLS XXX, it reads LIVING GOD +++.
What do you think, dear reader? Is that too offensive, or is it pretty much the sign (I love wordplay) that we humans need?
I considered another problem with taking this blog in that direction. I had to contemplate whether going there cramp my writing style on which some of you whom I have addressed as “dear reader” have given me some of the most wonderful compliments. I had to think whether my dry, sarcastic sense of humor would fit in with the subject of faith vs. trial. I just need to look to the sermons my wonderful rector gives. I love her dearly. This is a woman whom, if there is going to be grapes put down the back of someone’s shirt, she’s the most likely to be the instigator. Really, given my church in general, who says you can’t talk about faith and have fun with it at the same time?
Now that my rant is over, it’s back to the task at hand. Answering the question how can I call out to God when I’m suffering the most? PD is no joke. It sucks more than a Tim Taylor modified vacuum cleaner. If you don’t know what I’m talking about there, dear reader, refer to a nineties sitcom called “Home Improvement.” That’ll probably give you the best idea there. What I find rather amusing is that when my PD is at its worst, that’s when my faith is at its best. Crazy idea, isn’t it? Makes no sense. Common wisdom says that’s when I should be alienated from God. Common wisdom says I should be cursing God for causing this pain.
Or should I? Maybe, just maybe, there’s another angle to consider. Maybe God didn’t cause this suffering that I have. Maybe God didn’t cause any of the suffering in this world. What a thought, isn’t it?
Let’s take a look at the state of the world for a second. I’m going to use the NFL as an analogy. It is a culture not of what have you done for me lately, but what have you done for me in the past five minutes. It gets rather comical. Jon Gruden used to be the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He even coached them to a Super Bowl title. Five years later, he was fired. As I see it, any coach who coaches a Super Bowl winning team is a good one. Maybe it was the players and not the coach that made them into a losing team. The Raiders are worse. They’ve hired and fired more coaches in the past five years than anyone else.
That’s the state of the world, though. We’re taught, from a very early age, to look out for ourselves first, then everyone else after. Look at the divorce rate. What causes divorce? Most often it’s “he didn’t do this for me,” or “she didn’t do that for me.” Interesting, isn’t it? The focus of the people getting divorced was on themselves, not on the other person. Or how about the workplace? I can’t tell you how often I hear about how “this one doesn’t help me,” from one coworker, and then I have the other come up and say the same thing about the first one. My favorite is the coworker who runs around screaming how hard her assignment is and how she never has help, yet gets insulted when someone tries to help her. Did I miss something here? Holy crap! It really makes a person want to look at her and say, “get over yourself.”
To get back to my point, this is what we do with God. We say, “why should I follow God?” We say, “what has God done for me? Look, just look at my life.” We say, “God abandoned me, he doesn’t care.” Consider for a second, that it’s not about what God has done for you. Consider that maybe he isn’t the cause of all the suffering in the world. Consider that maybe God hasn’t abandoned us. Consider that, in reality, it is we who have abandoned God, and it was Christ Jesus who paid the price for our redemption. “The wages of sin is death,” Paul said. It was Christ, through suffering, who paid that price and won victory over the grave.
It’s not a promise of an easy life that Christ put out to us. The blessings we’re given cannot be measured in material objects. Some theology would have us believe that if we prayed for that huge house, or that fancy car, and sincerely believed we would get it, then we would. Some theology has reduced God to a vending machine. No wonder we ask what God has done for us.
The promise Christ gave us was a share in suffering. We live in a broken world. The apostle Paul spoke of a “thorn in his flesh” in second Corinthians. He said that he prayed for healing three times, and did not receive said healing. Some scholars believe that the thorn in the flesh was a lasting, lifelong, physical impairment like epilepsy. Yet, Paul did not curse, God. He preached all the more. He used his suffering as an inspiration to other believers in staying strong in their faith. He also said in that same book, “when I am weak, that’s when he is strong.”
I look at this post, and realize I have not even begun to answer the questions set forth at the beginning of it. So I’ll continue on. Maybe I’ll even find room for some sarcastic wit a good bit of the time. I like humor. It makes me laugh.
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