A lesson learned a lesson shared

So I wanted to write a blog about God stuff. I mean, really, it’s all God stuff. BUT, when you read your Bible and you pray, God teaches you stuff, and more than anything else, I think what He has been teaching me is worth sharing. Also, as a little default- please know that I am honest. I am going to be honest and I think that if I was to sugar coat struggle so that I sounded more spiritual or for any other reason, I would be jippin’ the lessons that God has taught me, jippin’ the pain that I have felt, and jippin’ the growth that has come out of it all. So, please read into my heart with grace and just know that I am not one to sugar coat, not worth the jip. Thank you J

My biggest question for the last few months has been, “In the darkest points of people’s lives, why does God keep silent?” It is no guarantee that He will keep silent at these times, but I have watched it happen, have had it happen to me, and have read about it happening, and I don’t like it. The promises that I have heard about God are ones such as these:

God will not leave you, will not forsake you. God loves you. God is a comforter and a healer. God is faithful. God is a save place to put your heart, to find your identity in. You know, the ones that everyone else knows, nothing out of the ordinary.

With those known and stated, I put my trust in them when I first came a believer. Whether I like to admit it or not, I was clinging to the prosperity gospel. And then, everything crashed. This was all about a year ago, but I have been jaded from the experience. I thought that things that bad things should not happen to Christians. That we were safe once we were saved. Kind of silly, I know, but that is what I had grown up snacking on in my faith. Who knew that everyone who had given their life to Christ actually still struggles, kind of lot actually. At my darkest point of sorrow and confusion, I was thinking that I must have said the sinner’s prayer wrong, because I shouldn’t be feeling like this if I was a Christian. I was devastated when I also did not hear from the Lord. Everything in the world could go wrong if I had the strength of God holding me up, keeping me firm, directing me and drowning me in His love, but I did not feel that either. I felt like at the darkest point of life, I was abandoned.

I remember at that I time I read through the Psalms that King David had written in the Bible. I read the book of Job. I read Jeremiah, I talked to my friends and all of these things had one thing in common: they understood where I was. King David writes psalm after psalm about feeling alone, pleading for God to say something. Job watches his family crash, his business, his health, his everything. He cries out to God and is returned with a big bucketful of silence. Jeremiah refers to God as a seasonal stream (sometimes there and sometimes nowhere to be found (Jere 15). These things are not comforting. People that love and adore God, that give their whole lives to Him walk through a hard time, cry out to the one that “never leaves” and hear nothing back. Yikes.

So that is the problem I was wrestling with. The question that held its hand was “why.” My dad used to say that “why” meant, “let’s argue.” That is exactly what I have been doing with God. J

The why’s go all over the place, but usually end in a tear packed whisper of, “Why didn’t I hear you?” It was awful to put my life and my heart in God’s hands and when I needed a parting of the clouds, an audible voice, a SOMETHING, I heard nothing. Ouch.

So I have been asking this question while I have been here in Thailand. What I have gotten back is pretty remarkable. I was first lead to Jesus on the cross. The fact that the cross was for me. That the love of God goes to the extent of being willing to die on another’s behalf, and beyond. I read on to see Jesus, you know, JESUS, the perfect one, ask His Father the same question that I asked.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” –Matthew 27:46, Psalm 22:1

And why would JESUS say that? Like seriously. Did He too, in His darkest hour, feel abandoned? First off, I am glad for His honesty. I’m glad that He doesn’t spew off some glory verse, but rather that of a cry. He chooses to be honest, vulnerable, and identifies with broken people in the world, that He is in the middle of saving. This shows me the way that God works. This was kind of a common thing; these people feeling alone, feeling in need of God, and not hearing back. As much as I want to say to God, “You know, God, I love you, but I disagree with your letting people feel abandoned in their darkest hour…” I realize something. He wants us to choose Him. He says He won’t give us more than we can handle, and sometimes we think that is a total load, but HE KNOWS. He warned us that this life would be rough and tough, He told us to keep our hope in the truth that He won. We can be scared or uncomfortable or even doubting in the moment, but remember how the story ends. He taught that our character was more important than our comfort, and that he was smitten when His people choose Him even in the most awful circumstances. To choose Him regardless of what we feel, whether or not we hear Him, whether or not it is cool or easy to continue onward.

That He wants us to choose Him. Even when everything is crashing.

I see this similar to when the Dad of a middle school girl drops here off at school. It’s not cool to kiss your Dad before you go. It is seriously almost painful depending on how important your social status is. And the Dad understands, He doesn’t ask, doesn’t call after His girl if she doesn’t kiss Him goodbye. He takes in her smile and her quick “Bye Dad,” and watches his little one run off. He sits in the parking lot for just a minute and watches her and then put his car into gear. She walks towards the school and decides that against all odds and judgment, that kissing her Daddy goodbye is worth it. She runs to the car before he leaves the lot and gets him before he heads off to work. You know that that Daddy’s heart is smiling.

I think this is how God is with us, with me anyways. In the hard stuff, maybe even harder than middle school, J He is still right there in the lot, still watching us. No matter how much it flat out sucks, He is still there, No matter how much we want a prosperous, joy-packed life, our Pops knows what is best. And, no matter how much we disagree with the way things are playing out or have played out in the past, God has it, and it’s never something big enough to abolish communication with Him about. But more than anything else, it is always going to be our choice to choose Him. We can choose that He sucks for not answering our call when it is an emergency and He knows it, that we don’t want anything to do with Him anymore. But deciding that we are going to keep our faith in a God that is sometimes silent in our eyes, even though in reality He is right there, continuing to choose Him makes Him smile.

Blah. That was a lot, I know. I hope that it makes sense because this is a lot of my learning crammed into one blog. But it is clear in the end. God wants to be chosen, and that He works it all into something better, stronger, more fierce and genuine.