Monday, 24 May 2010

• Frustrated With God: Handling Times of Struggle

  Sometimes, with fear and trembling, I question my salvation.  I often feel anger and frustration toward God and catch myself growing cold and distant toward Him.  Although I wish my relationship was God was one of pure joy, that is not the truth.  I experience negative things in this relationship, which arise out of pain, disappointment, and frustration. It would be silly to think I can hide such things from an all-knowing being.  I know that he wants me to discuss these feelings with Him, but I've done that many times before.  I've prayed for so many things that weighed deeply on my heart.  And many of these things have gone unanswered, and to further my disappointment, many of these things turned out for the worst.
  
  I realize this post sounds terribly pessimistic, but I'm just trying to be real and honest.  I do believe God has answered some of my prayers and I do recognize that I am blessed in thousands of ways.  But at the same time, I am not going to hide the darker side of things from God in the name of false piety.  The feelings are real.
  
  There are dreams that never came true and have a feeling may never come true.  There are loved ones and friends who never seem to change.  There is that home run ball that I often prayed about smashing over the fence but it never happened.   There are girls that I never did find the courage to express my feelings for, even though I prayed that God would give me the courage to do so.  There are insecurities that always seem to be nagging at me, physical problems that sting like a thorn in the flesh, and sin that I always seem to be coming back to. 
  
  In my spiritual walk (perhaps a better word is struggle or even better -- fight), I reached a point where I was just fed up with it all.  I was tired of not being able translate my ideals into actions.  If the Spirit resides in me, why does it feel like I'm not making any progress?  Why does my spiritual walk seem so cyclic?  God, why don't you listen to me?  Don't you care?
  
  Probably one of most frustrating feelings of my human condition is that of helplessness, especially one that revolves around the inability to change.  For example, sometimes I desperately try to muster up courage to face a fear, but I can't do it.   It's as if I lacked the capacity to change myself.  Indeed, this feeling of helplessness leads me to pour out my heart to God, but what am I supposed to do when I reach a state of learned helplessness, that is, I accept my inability to change and that nothing can be done to remedy the situation.  
  
  In the back of my mind, I knew that I could not reject God.  He has always been my hope of better things to come.  I would come back to him, but at that moment, I felt little love in our relationship.  I was tired of trying to be hyper-spiritual in hope that it would make be a better person.  If God is truly God, then only he has the power to change me and give me those desires and motives which I can't find.  But truthfully, even if I recognized those things brewing in my soul, I doubt I was in a place where I would act upon them.  To put it bluntly, I felt abandoned by God, which in return, made me feel like crap.
  
  Is spiritual consistency possible?  To some degree, I think the Christian walk will always be cyclic whereby spiritual renewal is followed by an attempt to translate ideas and passionate fervor into action and finally, a storm inevitably comes when God gives us an ego check and forces us to recognize our state of utter helplessness, total dependence upon him.  We must see that we truly are beggars all, so that in our weakness, he can be strong.  Less of us, more of him.
  
  Pastor Tim Keller explains what I'm trying to say pretty darn well in the following passage:
  
  "We think we've learned about grace, set our idols aside, reached a place where we're serving God not for what we're going to get from him but for who he is. There's a certain sense in which we spend our entire lives thinking we've reached the bottom of our hearts and finding it is a false bottom. Mature Christians are not people who have completely hit the bedrock. I do not believe that is possible in this life. Rather, they are people who know how to keep drilling and are getting closer and closer."
  
  So how does a follower of Christ find joy in this process whereby we never seem to be able to get in touch with our authentic selves in relation to God?  I don't think I really know the answer.   But when I look at Scripture, I know that joy comes from the Lord, that his mercies are new each morning (Lam. 3:22-23), and that he asks me to trust in him with all my heart, to lean not on my own understanding but to acknowledge him in all that I do, and he will take care of me in the end (Prov. 3:5-6). 
  
  So like Job, after offering up some pretty irreverent lamentations, I came back to a place of simple faith and  humbled myself before God and said, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know" (Job 42:3).  I recognized my lack of understanding was not an excuse for a lack of trust and once again, attempted to do that which I was meant to do as best I can possibly do, while praying for a child-like humility whereby I could find delight in the little things and find joy in everyday life.  
  
  Have you ever been frustrated with God?  What did you do to ease your frustrations?  What did God teach you?
  
  

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