Whence Shall These Struggles End?

I applied for and received the Barnabas position in my college, a position of Christan mentoring in the dorm that I will be assigned. It was the day after I was accepted onto the Barnabas team that an article my Barnabas from last school year was published in the editorial section of my college newspaper.

It was an article in defense of gay civil unions.

It was a well-written article, one that was the product of much thought and consideration. It was written in a conciliatory manner, not the usual antagonistic tone I have seen in other such writings. But, beyond that, he is a dear friend, one of the most humble, generous, honest, and open people I know. It was after much prayer, counsel, and research that he has taken this stand. It is not set in stone, and he admits the real possibility of being wrong, but it also paves the way for the lifestyle he has now chosen to lead.

And, it is this that has made me realize again: no matter how good a person I am, I am going to be horribly wrong and fall horribly short in many areas of my life. If he is right, I am terribly wrong; if such a person as he is wrong, how can I dare claim to be right about everything else? The very best that the Church has to offer are so very flawed.

I write this at a time when you, my fellow bloggers, as well as others have shared your personal struggles. I have mine too. I am currently working through thoughts about the Bible and how it should be read and interpreted in the light of new ideas that have been presented in my theology class at Calvin College, ideas that I would normally dismiss as being overly liberal and without good theological and scriptural justification, except that they come from sincere Christians who are more learned than I am. On a more mundane level, I recognize daily a great deal of self-centeredness that masquerades as hard-workingness, studiousness, or being disciplined, a self-absorption that gets in the way of loving God and loving others. And, that is just one of many frustrations I have in my spiritual journey. If I started to list them all, I would become so depressed that I would have to tender my resignation as Barnabas.

And yet, when I look back on my spiritual journey, where I have been and where I have come, I say: God has been good to me. And I trust He will continue to be good to me. His grace, how amazing it is! It is this hope alone that allows me to keep my faith, let alone grow in it or seek to serve. The very fact that I recognize my condition and feel frustrated is a sign of His grace: every time I feel I have grown or overcome, I see a deeper layer of deceit and pride within myself; and yet, I also see a greater potential to be the person God desires me to be. His work of sanctification is painful and lengthy. "How long more must I wait?" I ask. And yet, I have His promise that His work, though it may seem slow, will ultimately reach fullness.

I wish I could speak to your struggles and give you answers (and, candidly, I wish it more for my benefit than yours - another symptom of my pride and desire to be self-sufficient). That would give me so much more confidence as I prepare to become a Barnabas leader in this next school year. To be able to solve the problems that others present me...to say nothing of solving my own problems...but that is not the way it is. But this I know: God has chosen the weak to shame the strong, the foolish to shame the wise. My goodness is not a precondition of God's willingness to use me or you as His instrument of blessing. On the flip side, my being used does not make me any better than I was before, nor does it guarantee my continued "good standing."

I look forward to returning to you soon. I believe we have much to share, if we are willing and ready. There is much we can learn from each others struggles, and I trust there will be victories we can celebrate too. In the meantime, Godspeed on each of your spiritual journeys, however slow-going or meandering they may be. Hold on to hope, for we have a gracious God.

I think I owe this blog at least five posts...I'm lagging a little in this discipline of mine.

What I want most of all is to love and to be loved without fear. To be unafraid, to trust completely and unquestioningly in God's goodness; or, even if I question, to be able to have it out squarely with Him, not necessarily demanding an answer to the pain as in Job, but trusting that by the end of my complaint I will be forced to acknowledged the immutable conclusion that God is good and that He loves us perfectly as in many of the Psalms. Every year there is some new agony to face, as if I am addicted to pain and misery. I am not at that place now, but it usually comes around midyear or later.

The uppermost question used to be "Why?" In my most lucid moments I knew it was about pride and going through the refiner's fire and all sorts of things. In my most spiritual moments I realise I will not know until the last trumpet sounds. In moments of despondency I decided that it was some sort of punishment meted out by a God uneven in justice...but somehow thought I deserved it at the same time. Through the darkest moments of wretched thought, sometimes all that kept me going was the thought that God is good...no matter what I face. It didn't make me happy, and it didn't resolve the issue immediately. If anything, I was more unhappy realising that God's goodness never changed even through the pain. But the difference this conviction made was this: it gave me the strength to claim my life for Christ again, to rebuke the false thoughts and doubts and make decisions in spite of what I felt.

And so now I am on the beach, strolling with Christ, enjoying the respite until the Valley of the Shadow of Death comes again, whatever form it may take this year. Perhaps it will not (I always live in the hope that I will have one year with no major episode of sadness). But this is my life and I have accepted it. I do not need to fear.

When I ask "Why?" I suppose the implied question is also "Why me out of all others?" This blog helps me see that we are all singled out in God's purpose, each with our own road to walk, or in Henri Nouwen's metaphor, with our own cup to drink. I see my life travelling in cycles, but they are redemptive cycles, not destructive cycles. Each year seems to have more pain and fear than the last, but each year I also grow deeper into a life that is free of that. For some of us, the cycles may span more than a year...or there might not be a cycle at all, just a long meandering journey with surprises (whether nasty or nice) around each bend.

A year of hearing?

Akouo has been up for about a year and two days. Although it depends if you count the initial e-mail conversation leading up to it, in which case Akouo has existed for longer than that.


I find that at this juncture of my life, I must remember not to play the blame game, although I think, in many cases, that I am far more likely than others to put the blame for any mishap on myself. Again, this is speculation and something I must be careful not to take too seriously.

But whether or not I am prone to blaming others is not the main point. The thing is, blaming anyone--whether myself or another--inevitably shifts God out of the picture, or at least into the sidelines. I must remember the lessons of John 9 (that God may be glorified through the man's blindness) and Joseph (that God may use for good, that which is meant for evil).

Ours is the God of inextinguishable purpose, who is there in the darkest of days. I think Eugene Peterson rendered it well when he set the final words of Ezekiel in large font, in The Message;

YAHWEH SHAMMAH (the LORD is there)


Akouo means 'to hear' and at the top of this page its implications are noted:

1. to attend to, consider what is or has been said
2. to understand, perceive the sense of what is said

Sometimes it would seem that God's apparent silence is due to our deliberate deafness.


Practising for this coming weekend's trip to Malacca, and watching the musicians come in slowly to fill the empty spaces during the parents' worship rehearsal, I began to see life as a jam session.

And there are two senses of hearing while jamming. One is to hear for emptiness, and find a way to fill it, to layer the music so the overall effect is complete.

The other is to hear the correct sound. To hear the band leader over the drum, no matter how driving the beat may be. To hear the lead guitar, even if it's only an acoustic played over several electric guitars.

Thankfully life is a jam session, where mistakes are not the end of all things. But also, there is a goal and that goal is perfection, just as a band practises to play flawlessly. And as with a jam session, there is a concert coming up, and the time to get ready is limited.


Akouo.

Into a year of deeper, more perceptive hearing. Here we go.