Over the last month and a half I have been on a very difficult journey. One where I deconstruct the god(s) I worship and seek the Truth; the True God. I have had an impossible time writing about this journey even in my private journal, so complicated and chaotic are my thoughts and inner turmoil. But several times I have tried to write posts about this struggle, only to abandon them later out of frustration. What follows is are pieces of this long journey, strung together here in an attempt to share with you what I've been about this last month or so. It is long, so I have more tagged it for those who would rather skip over the struggles and revelations of this little child of God. I hope, however, you will take the time to read it all. It was written for you.
John's disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" — Luke 7:18-19
Hypocrite — May 15, 2008 11:56pm
How we live reveals what we truly
believe. And sadly, too often we don’t stop and examine how we live to
know what it is we truly believe. We just continue espousing with our
mouths what our head says we believe, while at the same time shouting
our true convictions from the rooftops with every action we take, every
fear we have, and every reaction we have.
I have been doing a lot of soul-searching, and seeking of Truth
lately; digging deep within to discover what I truly believe at my core
about who God is and what He’s like. I have found myself to be a
hypocrite.
What I “believe” in my head — that is, what I know from years and
years of church-learning, and what I’ve learned from a little less many
years of experiences with God, and convinced my head is true — is not
at all what I am convinced of in my heart. It is not what I live.
Rather, I live something else entirely. I have seen truth this pop up
many times over the last few years, but I finally stopped running and
faced it head on this week.
Deconstructing God — June 3, 2008 10:30pm
I have two gods. I am a pagan; an idolater in a disguise so good I fooled myself.
One god of mine is good, kind, loving; gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. The other is a tyrant; unforgiving, harsh, cold, distant, aloof. He has lots of rules and hoops to jump through, but he never tells you what they are. You only find out when you violate them and he withdraws his love and his hand of help.
The good god — I tend to think of him as “head” god –is all in my head; I know him there, understand him from all the things I’ve been taught in Sunday School and church. He’s also the one I seem to experience the most of. But he’s not in my heart.
My heart god, he’s the one I believe is the real god; the True god. He’s the one that my actions prove I believe in and worship, because he’s the one I’m most concerned with pleasing — so that he won’t abandon me in my time of need.
This paganism was pointed out to me a couple of years ago, and I sort of saw it, but not really. I mean, I got the fact that I think God is both loving and gracious and compassionate, and at the same time legalistic, unforgiving, and fickle with his love. But it wasn’t until about a month ago that I came face-to-face with the reality of my two incompatible gods.
It really started when I read a book called The Shack. I highly recommend it to those who want their view of God shaken to the core; and strongly discourage it to those who want to stay blissfully ignorant of their own paganism. Oddly enough, the way the writer portrays God is much the way I’ve experienced Him, down to the wit and charm. Yet I found the whole portrayal very disturbing.
It’s one thing for me, with my crazy vivid imagination, to “see” God in this way, it’s quite another for another person to put down in black and white that this is really what God is like. I never realized how much of my own experiences with God I have, in truth, in my heart deemed the workings of my imagination rather than really an encounter with the Living God. But this fact has become painfully obvious over the last couple of months. What do you do when you realize you don’t really believe the dominant relationship in your life really exists? What do you do when that “person” keeps coming back… that illusion keeps inserting itself into your life, your head, even after this realization of not believing?
This crazy journey continued when I undertook the task of sorting out what I really believe about God, and why, and where it came from. And then determine the Truth; ferret out who is the True God — if it is indeed possible to know the Truth. In other words, I am deconstructing my gods so I have room in my heart (and head) for the Real One.
It has been a wild and crazy ride; filled with panic attacks, anger, frustration, fear, confusion, more anger, the uncovering of buried, repressed anger, and many, many tears. I have taken a hard look in the mirror of my soul and realized the depth of my doubt, and the immensity of my own idolatry.
I want God to act the way I want Him to. I want Him to keep me safe
and sound; to provide for my comforts as well as my needs. At the same
time I expect Him to be a harsh task master; to only rescue me in times
of need IF I have jumped through all His preordained, but not
pre-communicated, hoops and rules.
So the way this all plays out is, I have a crisis of confidence
that I perhaps have not jumped through all the right hoops, and then I
become overwhelmed with fear, terror really, that a horrible future
will befall me. In other words, I believe I can manipulate God. I
believe God will do _______ (rescue me, take care of me, provide my
comforts/wants…. fill in the blank) if I do everything He expects.
And if I do NOT do all He expects, He will NOT rescue me. And the proof
that I am a bad Christian, a bad follower of Jesus, will be evidenced
in my complete financial/social/emotional ruin.
I desperately want to believe I can rest in God, that He will catch me. That he will provide whatever I need to get through no matter what happens, even if I don’t get what I think I need, or what I want. I just can’t convince my heart to take the chance.
I
don’t know who, or what, I’m going to find as I deconstruct god and
search for the True God. I hope it’s close to the one in my head; close
to the god described in The Shack. I hope… All I know is what I’ve got ain’t workin’.
Fired — June 14, 2008 3:35pm
So, I was talking to one of my mentors a couple of weeks ago,
describing my two gods. As I described my heart-god, she quietly said,
“I think you need to fire that god.”
Hmmm, how do you do that?
I don’t know… but I really think I need to. I need to get rid of him. But I don’t know how to get my heart to let go of him.
How do you fire a god your heart still clings to?
Lu, my heart goes out to you over your struggle. I know how much you love to love God. I know how much you need Him to need you. I wish there was an easy answer to your delimma, but there isn’t. I wonder if you see your position in God’s eyes much as you see yourself in your family’s eyes … good when you’re doing what you think they want, but a disappointment the rest of the time. This could explain your “paganism” and why you have a hard time reconciling your head God with your heart God.
I know what a good person you are and how giving you can be. It’s one of the reasons I love you and keep you in my heart. But I also think you are too hard on yourself and how you think the world (friends, family, co-workers, God) sees you; because, frankly, there’s a distortion between what you think “we” think of you and what we really do think of you.
There are definitely times you aggravate the heck out of me, but I have yet to turn my back on you or to say, “She’s no good for my life and I don’t think she’s worth saving.” Granted my interpretation of saving is a little different than yours – wink wink – but the result is pretty similar: my hand is still reaching out to you in friendship and love. I know that doesn’t equate to what you seek from God, but there is a correlation to be had; if a flawed human being like me can love you, why wouldn’t your True God? Isn’t He there to love us, sometimes in spite of ourselves?
Besides, what truly are the rules and hoops you’re supposed to jump through? Wouldn’t the True God guide you along the path with gentle cuffing when you stray a little too far, and an occasional swat on the behind when you refuse to acknowledge or answer Him? I can’t image that the True God would be mean and spiteful and so demanding that you’d never be able to live up to even 1/10th of what is expected.
Remember this: you are loved, by your friends and family and colleagues and God. No one expects perfection from you, just an honest attempt to live by the mores and values you hold to be true. Let the rest of it go and remember that in 50 years when we’re little old ladies sitting on a porch swing sipping lemonade through dentures, you’ll look back and say, “I grew so much that year. I found myself in God. What a treat.”
Go for it, Lu. God won’t drop you. Look at the cross and see what God did long before you were concerned about any of this.
Of course, I’m a complete hypocrite when I say that, because my currrent situation is quite similar to yours: Judge-God and Living-God sharing the same heart and the tension is tearing me apart.
Dreamcrash is hard to live through. Concept of life runs into God’s true face and gets very confused. Living with God is like the subcontinent of India running into Asia and raising tremendous mountains; I look at them and just want to quit climbing.
God Himself can be very comforting if I let him. Letting him is the hard part. I’m not a very trusting person, having been dropped far too many times in more tender years. Now I’m tough by necessity, and that gets in the way of any relationship. God pretty much has to build a whole new dream from amid the ruins of the one that has been falling apart in the last 14 years or so.
I’m tired.
Kat — Yes, most definitely most of my issues and struggles with God are rooted in “family of origin” stuff (as those counselor-types would say) — “good when you’re doing what you think they want, but a disappointment the rest of the time. ” a very apt description of what goes on inside me…. I can see it; I even know where most, if not all, of it comes from (I wasn’t going to put it on the Internet for obvious reasons), but I can’t seem to overcome it… yet.
I am still hopeful. I do believe I will come through this time with a better, more solid, stable view of God; one I can put my full weight on and rock the hell out of and never break. But getting there is rather a bitch. About the time I’m there, another round of terror breaks out, more doubts arise, and the cycle repeats.
Thank you for you incredible words… they brought me deep comfort (what do you mean I sometimes aggravate the heck out of you?!?! I’m a perfect angel! See my halo??). Sometimes I forget I not alone (feelings convince me of the contrary).
“Wouldn’t the True God guide you along the path with gentle cuffing when you stray a little too far, and an occasional swat on the behind when you refuse to acknowledge or answer Him?” What a beautiful description!
Larry — you know, I heard this preacher guy say the same thing about a month ago (Andy Stanley, Northpoint Church — Faith Hope and Luck series; I highly recommend it!); that our faith isn’t in what God might do today or tomorrow, but that our faith is in what God HAS ALREADY DONE. That is what we base our faith on, not whatever we may “hope” for today or tomorrow. Isn’t it strange that a girl who literally grew up in church still forgets that basic tenet? I just get so caught up in “everything else” that I forget that He’s already done the impossible.