#13 When you know better

I can’t count how many times I have found myself in a place where my whole heart yearns for something that I know might be foolish. I’ll burn with the desire to see my own will come to pass and it seems like nothing can stop me from getting exactly what I want. But at the end of those moments, when the battle is won and I claim my prize, I find myself still wanting. Turns out it wasn’t what I had expected and I find the same ache revived with even more ferocity. “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it!” wise men have often said. But it got me thinking: how do I reconcile this intense desire with the fact that it isn’t what I want? Furthermore, how would I respond when I think I know best for someone else? These questions give rise to probably one of the trickiest issues I have faced in my “good vs nice” debate: how do I follow where I don’t want to go? And how do I guide where others don’t want to be led? 

This problem has plagued me for years. If I were to survey 100 of those closest to me to describe me in one word, “stubborn” would definitely be the number one answer. Even when I am committed to following a cause, I don’t just pick up the ball and run with it. I have to understand it, to evaluate regularly and see if I still agree with it, disagree where I disagree and to accept nothing without chewing on it first. One might say I’m a bit mistrusting. I would argue that I am simply self-lead. But whatever the case may be, I have my way of doing things and no one’s going to stop me once I get started. Sometimes I can’t even stop myself! Isn’t that the conundrum!So when I approach the throne of God, that part of me doesn’t magically go away! I have had many conversations with God in which I say “hey, God! It’s me again. Yep, still asking for that raise. Still praying for a family of my own. I know I’m not the wisest being alive, but daggum! This is the only thing on my mind right now. Do with that what you will, but if you want the real me, here’s where I’m at.” Lately, I have started giving myself permission to cut loose and really express the entirety of this feeling. It’s not the most comfortable experience in the world, but it’s cathartic. I figure Jesus has already died for it, so there’s nothing more that I could do. There’s probably no way I could make my situation worse, right? I mean, doesn’t He already know my mind anyway? What harm could it do to understand it for myself, right?

I’m reminded of genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with God. We love to quote this one, don’t we? I almost didn’t want to reference it because of how cliche it is at this point. It has lost its real-ness for me by this point. As mentioned above, I would much rather remind myself that Jesus already died for all my gunk. “It is finished.” He said that day. 

Finished

Let that sink in for a second. It is finished. Once and for all, for all of time. This means it’s already done: the anger, rage, hatred, sadness, disappointment, all the stuff that we still see as present or even future: it’s all paid for already. That’s why my biggest piece of advice to people struggling with falling away from their faith is to simply come. I have had to learn to come to God with my anger-my raw, brutal bitterness, the type of stuff you wouldn’t want to hear in a sunday sermon, or from any christian for that matter. I have had to learn to admit where I’m at to God.

And that’s a brutal thing that we don’t dig into much. When we talk about wrestling, we picture the tame, high school sport that goes on in our sterilized gyms. We think of a safe environment with rules, regulations: 

“don’t throw punches, those hurt!” 

“Attacks to the eyes mean a penalty, so don’t do them!” 

This is not how we should wrestle with God! Wrestling with God isn’t a tickle-fight, it’s a life-or-death war: we play for keeps! It’s a contest of strength, where we throw down like we mean it! I’m not saying that God is going to try to kill us. Heaven knows if He wanted us dead, it would already happen. But if your passion rages and your questions are burning within you, you are obligated to turn them loose. After all, they’re killing you anyway, so you may as well try to do something about it! 

I have learned to hurl myself at God with my burning questions. I always picture myself smashing a glass bottle on a table and pointing it at God, demanding I get a response. Deep down, I know it’s because I just want to bring peace to our relationship. I’m fully aware that I am trying to make things right. But I can’t run from who I am. I can’t change the fact that I can be a stubborn brute sometimes. And I’m over and done with the idea that I should be ashamed of this fact. Stubbornness is a neutral power: I can be stubborn for God, or stubborn against Him. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being a bit hard-headed. People just don’t like it because it means they can’t mold me. But God still can. If he couldn’t, that would mean I am more powerful than God, and I don’t think either of us is ready to accept that one just yet. 

It took me years before I could approach the throne boldly. For a while, I would try to hold back the floodgates myself, asking God on behalf of my angry self like a polite little messenger. “The people would like to inquire as to the state of their request to possess adequate clothing and shelter for their generalized wellbeing. Please respond with all manageable haste, as their overall contentment levels appear to be decreasing steadily over time.” In other words, I would say “God, I know I’m not wise, but I really want this thing. Could you please speak to this?” 

Now, there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with this type of approach. If that’s who you are, then by all means! Talk to God this way. He always appreciates a heart of respect and admiration. But the point that I am trying to make is don’t hold back and be inauthentic with God. He already knows who you are anyway. The only person you are really hiding from is yourself. The point where this becomes truly wrong is when you take all that you’re feeling, and use it as a wedge that sits between you and God. There’s a world of difference between “I don’t like this, God, all my being cries out ‘screw you, you aren’t good, you’ve abandoned me!’” and “Alright, God has officially left me on ‘read,’ guess I’ll figure it out on my own.” 

There is no feeling that God can’t handle, that Jesus hasn’t already died for. Of that, you can be perfectly certain. But if your heart is dead-set on abandoning God, He’ll let that come to pass. You always have the right to choose, and God will never interfere with that. He will send warnings, He will send you those annoying bumpy lines when you are steering off the road, but He will never put you in a cage. That’s just not His style. He will always give you the right to choose between walking towards, or away from, His divine grace. It’s up to us to make the right choice. 

But there does come a time when you need to be put in your place. Just as Job was. But you might ask “isn’t the story of Job the perfect counter-example to your point, Sir Endar?” 

Yes and no. 

God is still bigger than you, so when you throw hands with God, your will won’t trump His. Everything that transpires is within His control. Job’s response can be found in chapter 42. As the author of an article on desiringgod.org writes: Job tasted and saw that the Lord is good. (link cited below) I think that's what we all need: to experience God. We need a personal encounter, a taste of who God truly is. When we are in pain, we often ask questions like “why, God? Why is this happening to me?” In those moments, I have found myself asking “if there were a reason, would that lay my heart to rest? Would I be truly satisfied with even the most perfectly-crafted argument? I’m reminded of a story that makes me realize the answer to that is a big fat “no.” 

There was one time as a kid where I had to visit the dentist. This wasn’t a major emergency-no pain or aching, just a regular ol’ checkup. And right after the checkup, we were going to make the hour-long drive to see my grandparents. We were all lined up for a wonderful day. Well, when I sat in that dentist chair, they asked me to do a pre-rinse so my mouth would be good and clean for inspection. This was nothing special, just standard procedure. Except, the dentist filled that little cup with mouthwash and jokingly told me I had to fit it all into my mouth in one go. Me, being the serious, naive kid that I was, took him seriously and did just that. I thrust that cup sky-high and sent all of that mouthwash through my teeth in one trip. My mouth was completely full, and so my body did what it naturally does with a mouth full of fluids: I swallowed it. And this was just as the dentist was opening his mouth to tell me that I shouldn’t do that. Oops, too late! He shrugged it off, saying it was no big deal.

In case you weren’t aware, swallowing mouthwash won’t kill you, but it will upset your stomach a little bit, something I was highly prone to anyway. To make matters worse, I was also prone to car sickness. Sometimes those little things don’t seem like much,  but when you stack them up, they become a recipe for disaster. So I got out of the dentist’s office with no problems and we hit the road. As the trip went on, I began to sink into my usual nausea. Then I began the usual moaning and groaning that came with being sick.

Whether your ill-feelings come from the flu, a hangover, or anything in between, we all know what I’m talking about: feeling your body drop to the floor, praying for the sweet release of death, or anything else that it might take to be rid of this foul feeling. Some of you that never pray start rambling off the list of deities in hopes you land on the right one to ease your pain. Some of us go straight to a general “to whoever is out there, if you can hear me.” We beg, plead, and bargain for our release. Whatever it takes, we will do it, we just want out of this feeling. 

And that day, as I sank into that familiar pit of torment and despair, I kept pestering my mother with several forms of that age-old question: why. Why did we have to make this long drive? Why couldn’t they just come to us instead? Why was this taking so long? Why did I feel this way? But with every question, my mom had an answer. Each answer I greeted with a simple “oh.” I realized that everything made perfect sense and that we were doing what had to be done. Yet still, my heart ached, like there was a thirst still needing to be quenched. A nice, intellectual, “head-knowledge” answer did very little to ease my ache. Sure, it shut me up for a moment, but I would quickly return to my sighs of sorrow until everything came spilling out to resolve itself. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to poo-poo intellectual pursuits at all! After all, I still have my degree in philosophy, and I’m still quite proud of it. But the mind and the heart; the psalms and proverbs, they all point back to the same basic need: the need to connect with God the father. I know I just made at least one or two people groan in the background. I, myself, groaned a little just writing this. This feels like such an abstract thing, so strange and mystical. Perhaps it might even sound a little cliche, right? But stick with me. Indulge me as I elaborate a little. And if you still feel the same way afterward, then by all means! Groan away!

I used to mock this idea. I would say something like “you can’t just lick your finger and say ‘ok, if the wind points south today, I’m going to serve the people of Uganda. If it points north, I’ll become a billionaire and donate to charity.” It always seemed so silly to me. And I’ll admit, I still have a lot to learn about the presence of God, despite how much I talk about it. But one thing I know with absolute certainty is this: God can show up. And when He does, it’s undeniable. It’s awe-inspiring, it makes you tremble in your very boots. He doesn’t always show up like we expect, but He is there. And of all the doubts I have had about the journey He has brought me on, none of them have been about whether or not He is still good and still working. On that much, I am as firm as can be. Sometimes we just don’t see it. But if we ask, if we take a moment to look back and seek, He will show us how He has been there all along. We may still sit with that aching question of “why like this?” I know I still do. But we’ll always lose when we try to argue that He wasn’t there. Of that, I am certain. 

Alright, that was a lot! I want to take another moment to look at our original question: what do we do when our hearts run wild? Except now I want to look at it from the other side: what do we do with others when we know what’s best for them, and they refuse to listen? Our go-to strategy is to push back and pray that hindsight will one day come through for us. And although that’s not a bad strategy, I think we could do better. I think there are better ways to convey the journey to those who don’t understand. The simple answer is to try to help them understand. With everything we do, we should always be trying to help others understand. Whether you have to learn to speak simpler to your kid or use different metaphors for your friend, we could all do a little better to actually get them to understand in the first place. Many times we try to write things off because we assume that they won’t understand. The truth is actually that we don’t understand. We aren’t able to communicate things well enough. If we simply learned a new way of speaking to a child, spouse, or whoever it is, we can actually learn to convey at least part of the significance of the situation to them.  

The second way is an appeal to trust. If you truly can’t give them any answers, ask them to trust you. Maybe your kid just doesn’t get it. Maybe you need to keep secrets for a while. Promise to explain things when you can, but remind them regularly of all the ways you care for their wellbeing, and make it crystal-clear that this isn’t a reason to believe that they should believe that you are out to get them. I mentioned this idea in a previous entry about pain: if you can’t prove to someone what is, lock the problem in the cage of what it’s not. You are putting them on a better path that they don’t understand, and it has nothing to do with anything they did. It’s not their fault, they aren’t being punished. It’s simply what has to be. 

Lastly, give them a space to take it all out. Be their punching bag. Let them rant, rave and scream if they must. All that anger and disappointment is going to erupt eventually, so you may as well be there to contain it before things get out of hand. Imagine what our relationships would be like if we let each other express our anger before we simply turned them into enemies. I think we could solve a lot of problems this way. Give it a try: let them show you what’s on their hearts. Once they’re done, show them that you still love them and aren’t going anywhere. It will all work itself out in the end. 

Whew! This was a lot to unpack! If you have stuck with me this far without skipping anything, I’m grateful for you. To put this into practice, block off some time to do some serious wrestling with God. Write about it, find a quiet place to pray, do whatever fits best for you to have that long-overdue conversation. I do recommend a quiet, secluded place where you won’t be seen or bothered, as these wrestlings get messy. 

If you have someone that you are guiding in your life, ask them if they need a time to vent as well. Do for them what God has done for you: give them a wrestling space. Let it all pour out. No snapping back and no angry remarks. I guarantee it will sting a little, but do your very darndest to hold it all back so that you can see what’s on their heart. It won’t be fun, it won’t feel “nice,” but it will most certainly be good. 

Once again, thank you for reading the entirety of this post. Your views and responses have encouraged me and kept me going through all of this. You are an essential part of the mixture that fuels me. Keep up the good work!Until next time

May Peace be your guide.

Source cited: https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/job-reversal-in-suffering