Lincoln Six-Echo: “Hey, so what’s up with Doctor Merrick?”
McCord: “You mean why he acts like he has a filing cabinet up his ass?”
(Laughing): “Yeah.”
“It’s called a ‘God-complex’. All doctors are like that. They think they know everything.”
Confused: “What’s ‘God’?”
“Well. You know. When you want something really bad, and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God’s the guy that ignores you.”
“Oh. Right.”
McCord’s answer to Lincoln’s question (in the hit movie “The Island”, 2005) captures the “white elephant” of a lot of Christians. How many Christians have I talked to who struggle with different aspects of faith? More than I can count on my ten fingers and ten toes… and I am one of them. What we struggle with in regards to our faith is different person-to-person, and for me there are two issues that I am currently wrestling with, one of them (the second) magnified in this scene from the movie.
Does God want me to be happy?
Does God care about my prayers?
These questions keep me awake at night.
“Does God want me to be happy?” I have testimony from the scriptures that “happy is he who is in the Lord” and that God infinitely cares for our happiness more than we know. Yet what am I to do with this testimony when I am met with “cognitive dissonance”: when my perceived reality doesn’t mesh with my actual reality? I have believed and put faith in a God who wants me to be happy; yet this perceived reality is shaken by a life lived in sorrow. If God grants the heartfelt desires of His children, why are my heartfelt desires—those desires so deeply rooted and implanted within me—always so far off, or so close but yet untouchable, or only to be tasted for a brief moment before being snatched away into oblivion? I wrestle with the idea that God wants me to be happy. “If God wants me to be happy, then why do things only seem to get worse? Or why do things seem to get better—but then turn in an instant into a weeping tragedy?”
“Does God care about my prayers?” I pick up the Gospel of Luke, and as I read through it, I see that Jesus says God hears our every prayer, that He is moved to action by our prayers, and that He cares about us. Again, “cognitive dissonance”: this perceived reality is shaken by the reality in which I find myself. My prayers, issuing forth for years, continue to be unanswered. And what’s worse, when they seem to be answered, and when I thank God for the answers to my prayers, the “answers” become dead-ends or pits filled with pungi sticks. It has gotten to the point where I am afraid to thank God for blessings in fear that they will be taken away. “If God cares about my prayers and is moved by them, why does it seem like He is ignoring me?”
Be hesitant about posting a comment or two giving me theological advice. I don’t want it. I know the theological answers. I’ve studied these issues in several of my classes. Don’t spout Bible at me. I know it already. “Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.” (C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed) I don’t desire answers to these questions. I desire to be in a place where I don’t have to wrestle with them. I desire to experience happiness, to see God answering my prayers… I don’t want to be haunted by the vacuum of God’s silence and inactivity that seems never to break.
Faith begins with excitement. We’re radiant with joy, bursting at the seams, devouring the scriptures, expectant of God working in our ordinary lives. Then comes a dullness: the joy fades, we continue our lives, and although our faith in Christ may be growing and expanding, it simply isn’t as exciting as it used to be. And then comes disillusionment, doubt, questioning, wrestling. That’s where I am now. We begin to really question what we believe, what we’ve been taught, whether or not what we’re putting so much time, energy, and commitment into really is the truth. The Esteemed Doctor Smith told my class, and I am paraphrasing: “This stage in the evolution of your faith is one of the most beautiful and necessary phases. If you haven’t gotten to it, you will. If you’re there, then you’re on the right path.” And this questioning and wrestling will lead to one of two fates: our faith dies... or it experiences rebirth.
No comments:
Post a Comment