I know this isn’t news to most people, but when I realize how hard God is to get, I still get sad. Nothing about him makes any sense. Perhaps that is as it should be, He is God after all, but an expectation was set up for me during my childhood and teen years and I’m still unwinding that in many ways. I was taught very emphatically that I could, in fact, understand God, and there were three ways to do it…
First : Read the Bible because it’s like a handbook, it’s the owner’s guide to the Christian life.
I don’t think anyone who says that has actually read the Bible, to be quite honest. A few months ago our pastor preached on Sodom and Gomorrah. And Lot, who is supposed to be the righteous man in town, or at least righteous enough that he belongs to God and God makes deals with him, voluntarily offers up his virgin daughters to be raped by the men of the town. His actions are terrible on their own, but when you realize that God was going to lengths to save this man, it’s horrifying. That doesn’t help me understand God. Maybe it should, but it just doesn’t.
Second : Look to the church because they are the Body of Christ and will help in all matters of faith.
And this actually is kind of true – when the church is helpful, it can be really helpful. But when things go bad between people and church leaders, it is so very painful. A close friend of mine recently commented about being tired of seeing church leaders hurting the people she loves. And I’m tired of it too. And there is no where to go away from that. Sometimes I truly wonder if, over the course of my lifetime, the church has done more harm to my spiritual development than good. I hate admitting that, but its where I am.
Third : The still small voice of the Spirit will guide you.
Sure…expect when it guides one person one way, and another person in the opposite way. I’ve heard a lot of people do things because they felt the Spirit was leading them – and just as many people who believe they are wrong. I don’t know what to do with that.
But giving up faith is not an option. It’s part of me, deeply embedded in who I am. There is no switch to turn it on or off. It is just there.
I don’t have any neat way to tie this up. God is confusing and I don’t understand…and the things we’ve been given to help, don’t seem to work. I will leave you with this song from Rich Mullins. I like it because he doesn’t really tie things up too neatly at the end either. The song ends with, “It’s just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get” and that’s how I feel tonight. And I know this is when faith is needed the most – faith isn’t for the times of feeling certain, it’s for the unsure and cynical times. So, I suppose my prayer is, “God who I don’t understand, who does things I don’t get, who heads a family of people that don’t act like they should – please accept my small faith in you. Shelter it and help it to grow. Don’t mock it and stomp it out because its too weak. Amen”
“Hard to Get” by Jen
This person makes sense to me.
