Land of the Free

Not long ago, I overheard a conversation between two fellow Christians, in response to some sort of political issue that's been in the works. Actually, I overhear a lot of such conversations under those circumstances, but this time it stuck out to me. I don't recall what was said, or even what specific topic was being discussed, but that's not relevant. What I do recall is some of the thoughts I had regarding the conversation, and all those like it.

Pretty much any time you turn on the TV, you're going to hear about a huge, controversial issue that has one group or another (usually multiple, really) all riled up. This is unsurprising; things like this are the reason that formal social etiquette advises against discussion of politics. Someone always gets offended, overly concerned, or even paranoid, which ultimately causes a lot of social discord. But the thoughts I had on this were focused specifically on us Christians, as a church body.

I've been seeing an interesting fact posted and discussed a lot lately: there are 365 different Biblical instances of some variation of the phrase, "Do not be afraid." Safe to say, God considers that an important issue to take to heart. And yet, a lot of the concern about political affairs involves Christians getting overly offended or worried about the direction the country is taking with its policies. In response to non-Christians promoting and embracing what they see as progress and equality, we start trying to impose Christian values on a godless nation; people who, as non-Christians, have no reason to take such values to heart. And then we rationalize our legalism by claiming that it's putting Christianity at risk. "Do not be afraid," God says. So what do we do? We become paranoid at every sign of trouble.

I'm reminded of instances in the Bible when, politically, God's people were basically given the finger. The Israelites spent a lot of time under the political heel of first Egypt, then the Babylonian Empire, then the Roman Empire. (There might be some I missed; I'm not very good at history, but you get the idea.) And of course, they worried too, at least on the broad scale. However, there were always exceptions; the few faithful. But that's just it: those few faithful servants are examples of the way God wants us to live our lives. Lives that glorify Him.

We can look at people like Esther, Daniel, the furnace trio, John the Baptist, and the apostles of Christ, all living in times of political hardship. They obeyed the laws, at least within the confines of God's law, even when the rest of the world, it seemed, was very much against God's will. They didn't cave to the ways of the world, but they did follow the law of the land, until it conflicted with the law of God. Did they all prosper when their faith was tested and proven? No. But all of their lives did glorify God, which is the ultimate point of them.

Of course, Jesus Himself lived His life in complete accordance with God's word, all the while seeming to mostly stay out of political issues, and truly, out of the business of unbelievers. He didn't come to judge the unbelieving world (not the first time, anyway). He did, however, teach how to live life the way God wants us to live, ultimately leaving the choice to those who would listen.

As Christians, we have to acknowledge the fact that this is not our home. It's not God's kingdom, so the political direction it takes shouldn't disturb us, at least not beyond a sense of urgency about spreading the Gospel. If anything, a downward spiral into decadence should be expected.

I think the real reason we dislike the "progressivism" is that it interferes with the comfort and safety of living in a Christian-friendly environment. But we're not called to be comfortable, or even safe. We're called to be faithful and grow closer to Christ; an endeavor that's made unnecessary to our subconscious minds, because there's no real need for strong faith.

Even look at the Christians living in anti-Christian nations today. Their environment is, I imagine, not unlike that of early Christians. And their faith is undoubtedly greater than ours. It has to be, because it's tried and strengthened every day. You don't claim Christianity in a political environment that wants to exterminate Christians if your faith is weak. I'll even go as far as to submit that their faith is as strong as it is, in many ways, because of their circumstances, in the sense that it's constantly getting exercised by them. If I'm correct in that, it goes to show that in addition to being expected, a taste of real adversity may actually do us a bit of good.

Now, I won't advocate what is, in truth, the world's regression, and I myself am not strong enough to pray for such adverse circumstances. But I do think that we should take all of this in stride, as we remember that God has everything in His hands. It's for Him to judge, and for us to take on the light burden of lovingly and compassionately sharing the Gospel, without worrying about worldly circumstances.

The Story Ain't Over

In light of life calming down and my insecurities beginning to level out, I've had a lot of mental energy to process some things. But since I was basically doing that anyway, that energy has made me a bit restless. It's an uncomfortable feeling, when you sense that your relationship with Christ is entering a bit of a lull. But as I reflected on that this morning, it gave me some interesting things to think about.

Specifically, my thoughts this morning led back to a couple of years ago, when my journey was only beginning. Internally, I had an aim; somewhat of an end-goal, as far as where my faith would go. My goal was this: to be "right" with God. The thing is, if I could take a picture of my relationship with Him now and send it back to myself back then, I imagine it would be pretty close to what I had in mind. In that sense, I have arrived at my initial destination. Journey complete, right?

Wrong.

Part of me knew this all along. Of course, being a silly, limited human, I largely ignored certain glaringly obvious truths about faith, probably because they made me uncomfortable. That is why we ignore the truth, isn't it? At least, that's what seems to be true of me.

The similarities between a relationship with Christ and any other relationship are... well, nearly identical. At least in many respects. The one I specifically have in mind is the unending nature of them. In any healthy kinship, friendship, or romance, one thing you never anticipate at the beginning is a termination, happy or otherwise. It's never part of the plan. It happens, of course, but you don't plan for it, and when it does, it's a tragedy to some degree.

In contrast, when I began following Christ, I dreamed of the happy end, when I would be the man God intended me to be, which basically meant peacefully and joyfully following Him. What I didn't realize then was that this point, where I actually am now, is not an end at all, but a continuation. More like a checkpoint.

I had a similar revelation early on, when I discovered that the point when I truly became a Christian, in deed as well as in name, was not the happy end, but only the beginning. Now, in recognizing the relationship that is Christianity, as well as spending some time wondering why I feel strangely unfulfilled by my endgame, I'm forced to logically conclude that the idea of an endgame at all is false. I can't be "right" with God, except in my acceptance of His grace and choice to follow Him. That much is decided, but there is and will always be more room for the relationship to grow and develop.

In fact, I think that's the original intention. Even pre-sin, and by extension, post-salvation. I believe that since we were created with relationship in mind, even in a perfect world, in the state we call "heaven," the design allows, encourages, and even requires unbounded growth.

I think the reason I've been so uncomfortable with that is that it's infinite, and therefore not possible to fully grasp. Similar, I imagine, to the way that we're at first uncomfortable with the idea of God being who He is. Yet, this need not be a cause for discomfort, but rather a source of sheer reassurance: how unfathomably beautiful it is to have such infinite freedom from an infinite Creator, who loves us infinitely.

Reason

For a long time, I've slaved over the idea of forgiveness. Specifically, I've wondered to myself if God could truly forgive even me. It's odd, because intellectually I know that nothing I've consciously done in my past is unforgivable, especially in light of a fact that is a cornerstone of my faith: that God will forgive all those who repent, no matter how heinous the sins in question appear in human eyes. Yet, for years I've subconsciously beaten down on myself with feelings I long ago identified as guilt.

If I'm being completely honest with myself, though, I realize the feeling from which I'm suffering isn't that at all. It's not something from my past for which I can't forgive myself. It has more to do with internal justification. Part of me is aware that the things often happening aren't fair (speaking logically and statistically), and yet my recognition of how juvenile it is for me to expect them to be so forces me to suppress my frustration, knowing full well that giving vent to those negative feelings will accomplish nothing.

As a side note, I don't think that's wrong. Self-control is an important part of spiritual maturity, so whining and stewing about things not going my way would be counterproductive. It's proven to be so for me in the past.

With that in mind, though, it's lately been my course to be proactive in this. My only partial acceptance of the truth has deceived me into believing that there's something I'm still doing completely wrong, and I'm just not seeing it. With that mindset, I try to rationalize the idea that all I have to do is figure out what that something is, change it, and allow that to fix everything. Reward for the good, punishment for the bad.

The snag, of course, is that if I find something and fix it, yet the conditions don't change, as is quite often the case, I become more confused as to why my solution didn't work, when logically it should have.

The long in short of all of this is that somewhere along the line I developed a sort of punishment complex. My mentality has been one of deserving all the misfortune and heaviness of heart I've had; a thought process that serves to explain to myself the reason for those things. I guess the notion is that my past mistakes justify all the present bad things, and so that, in theory, empowers me to preempt future pain by fixing poor behaviors now.

The obvious problem with this theory is that it leaves no room for grace, nor for God to do His work. It attempts to put me in control of my life, when in reality some things are simply beyond my control and comprehension. Such is the case with everyone.

I'm still working through this one. Because while I am intellectually aware that sometimes the negative conditions can't be solved by my actions, I'm still struggling to internalize and truly believe that fact. Something subconscious, like an instinct, keeps trying to justify; keeps looking for the solution.

This ties back to my need to trust that God has all of this under control. It's that trust that He requires as an offering from me, as a true mark of my faith.

This Is the Life

My thoughts of late have been more long-run reflective than usual. As I've spent the past couple of months scrutinizing my life and faith and comparing them against my past, specifically considering what's actually been different for me in my new life, I've noticed a definite trade-off.

I won't deny that I don't live a prosperous life, and I usually feel very much alone. I'm depressed more often than not, and I often question what good end my life and suffering could possibly have. As I reflect, my life in almost no ways resembles what it once was, with regard to this world's standards of success and fulfillment. And while I was never remarkably successful by this world's standards either, I definitely used to be more so in several ways.

But even still, while I don't consider myself to be a happy person, my present circumstances aside, I have to wonder how I lived as long as I did before I had an intellectual knowledge of a purpose behind my existence. Looking back, I know I wrestled with existentialism in varying degrees for several years in my awkward, nihilistic in-between phase. My thought is that I must have survived that through a moderately hedonistic lifestyle; a thing that's instantly gratifying, but nowhere near permanent enough to permit me to take any considerable measure of satisfaction or gather any real sense of worth from it all. But somehow I usually managed to maintain just enough wisdom and foresight to refrain from making any mistakes that would be too overwhelmingly destructive to my future. I guess God was watching over me, even then.

The trade, then, was what was a generally happier lifestyle, for one that actually serves a higher purpose, for something greater than myself and this world's petty pleasures.

I am not content in my life. My hopes and dreams for it are yet unfulfilled, and some or all of them may always be so. I still go through a daily roller coaster of depression and hopeless feelings. And yet, I know those feelings to be fleeting, and I know my hopes and dreams are paltry when compared against what God has in store. Trusting in Him daily has been difficult, but not impossible, because I know that despite my present sufferings, I would not trade them for the empty, purposeless life I once lived. This darkness is only temporary, and I have to believe that God will see me through it, to a better result than I can comprehend.

Arrival of Love

I'm what you might call hyper-sensitive to my sins. After all, as introspective as I get pretty often, it'd be hard to not at least be aware of my shortcomings. And they are many. It's something I try, with mixed results, to work on. Still, even aware as I am, it's appalling how often I seem to lose control and fall prey to the patterns of sin I know I'll later regret.

There are reasons behind my sins, of course; things like getting distracted or overwhelmed under given circumstances, or just being undisciplined in general. Part of my growth is in learning how to deal with these issues. But my purpose now is neither to explain nor even address these problems and solutions.

I know I'm, by far, not the only one to go through this behavioral pattern. But I'm always ashamed when I mess up. Too often I lose my temper or fall into a deep, dark depression, say a lot of things I don't mean, and think even more things I can otherwise acknowledge as being completely irrational. When I later snap out of these negative mindsets, there's often a lot to account for to other people, ending with apologies that I'm sure sound progressively less genuine each time. They do to me, anyway.

Such a thing happened again recently. I'm not sure if my poor attitude and mindset actually manifested in a way that was noticeable to other people, but I was certainly conscious of it, and that was enough for me. Sin is sin, after all.

My normal pattern after losing control like that is to seclude myself somewhere and degrade myself in that solitude. But for some reason, that was not my reaction this time. While I did go off by myself and have some pretty negative thoughts, when it came down to it, what I felt compelled to do instead was address God directly. I asked Him for forgiveness.

It was amazing, what happened next. I had a wash of memories of people telling me how much God loves me, how pleased He is with me, and how He has great things planned for my life. I suddenly remembered God's love for His children. Not just an awareness, but an actual realization of His love for specifically me, at least to an extent. It felt like He was telling me that He loved me no less because of my sins, and that my repentance from them was what pleased Him.

This is evidence of God's predilection for taking our innate destructiveness and using even that to deepen our relationship with Him. A way of showing that not only is no one beyond redemption, but that when someone is so redeemed, it serves an even higher purpose: His glory through unthinkable grace and forgiveness.

Trust

Over the years, I've watched many people rebel against God, or give up their faith and walk away from Him entirely. It's only increasingly pursuing Him myself over the past couple that's caused me to feel the weight of sorrow at the sheer tragedy of that.

It's hard acknowledging that there's no person with all the answers; no person that will never falter; no person I can use as a rock, to keep me steady. With this on my mind, I'm reminded of how much I put other people on pedestals. And as time passes and life happens, bringing with them the trials that truly test us, one by one, these people fall off their pedestals, leaving me with a lot of trouble trusting again.

Ultimately I know this is another cleansing fire for me. And what it means is that it's time for me to start putting all of my trust in God, which is something I've always had trouble with. That's what lies at the very heart of my doubt. It's never been a question of disbelief, only of trusting that God has me, my life, and every circumstance therein carefully cupped in His hands, and that He cares enough about it all to take care of it.

I don't believe this means I can't trust other people. But it does mean to trust them within the confines of the understanding that they will fall and fail, whereas God never will. This, too, is something with which I've struggled, because of my desire to be able to completely trust someone who's physically and tangibly there. But where wisdom from others has fallen on my deaf ears, repeated experience has proven futility in such a desire.

It's always been more or less binary for me: either a person can be trusted universally, or they can't be trusted at all. But that's not the truth. Trust between people has to be gradual, and never absolute. That's an aspect of relationship that's exclusively for God, and I think will be a sign of maturing faith when it's there. He wants my absolute trust, and it cannot be shared with other things.

Tragedy and Triumph

For years I've wondered something about the way God works. Now first, let's work around the fact that we aren't always meant to understand God's ways; that's another discussion. But I've always wondered why He doesn't reveal Himself to those seeking Him in an obviously supernatural, benevolent way, to reassure us during trials of faith.

The clear answer behind this is the abundance of examples given in the Bible, during which times God's hand was supernaturally obvious, and yet the people were still unfathomably faithless. There is no one passage for this, because that's basically the theme of humanity throughout the Bible and history itself.

The primary example that comes to mind is all that befell the nation of Israel throughout the entire Old Testament. My thoughts begin in Exodus, with their enslavement and subsequent liberation that could have been nothing but God's work. Plagues of the nature and magnitude shown don't just happen. There could be no doubt in anyone's mind that ours is the one true God.

Yet, two things we see.

The first, and smaller to scale, is the repetitive reaction of Pharaoh. Despite seeing things progressively more supernatural, things that could not be explained but by the hand of an all-powerful God, still his heart was hardened. It wasn't until after the people had suffered ten plagues, his staff had acknowledged God's sovereignty, God had answered a plea on his behalf, he had claimed repentance (but apparently wasn't genuine), and he had lost his own firstborn (along with everyone else's throughout Egypt), that he finally relented to God's will. And even then, he still went back on his word. These actions can't be justified by saying that Pharaoh didn't believe that God is almighty and worthy of his worship and obedience. Pharaoh's was a simple rebellion against what he must have known to be right all along, but had too much pride to truly repent and make amends.

The second, on a much broader scale, is the redundant theme of faithlessness from the Israelites. Time and time again we catch glimpses of them worshiping other gods, even as soon as right after their liberation from Egypt, and pretty much onward from there. Meanwhile, all throughout the Old Testament, we also continue to see undisguised acts of God. But again, these miracles did nothing to make the people more faithful.

Speaking from firsthand experience, I've been forced to acknowledge God's work, because some things just can't be chalked up to coincidence or imagination. Therefore, intellectually, I know and believe that God is there, almighty, and worthy of our full devotion. Yet, a cheerful, joyful, eager servant has never been a descriptor I would use for myself (though rest assured, I want to be that).

From these examples, it's clear that knowledge of God's will and willingness to lovingly do it are two separate entities.

Now, finally, let's observe a modern-day relational dynamic: that of a parent and child. All too often I've seen the effects of bad parenting manifesting as not enough discipline. The consequences are twofold. One, the child becomes spoiled and self-centered and develops a sense of entitlement. Two, the child has no respect for the authority of the parent, or anyone, for that matter.

As followers of Christ, we are God's children. And as our Father, He knows best how to parent us. Discipline is necessary when there's an impurity in our hearts, and sometimes our hearts require a complete overhaul. The process in such a crucible is neither short nor painless. The change wouldn't happen if God just proceeded to dote on us; we would remain spoiled and rebellious in our hearts, even if we were "following the rules."

My conclusion is that hardship, which is permitted by God, is not intended to be just incentive to change our ways, on account of knowing that they're the consequences for misdeeds. These trials are intended for so much more: to cultivate our hearts, so that they will produce fruits of the spirit. This is something that can't be rushed, because the faithful, loving relationship between us and Him is shaped, over time, by this discipline.

It's encouraging for me to know, on a personal level, that God's work in my life will not be fruitless; that the peace and joy in Christ that I long for is part of what He has in store for me.