Waiting for God

It has been a season of waiting.

Waiting for God to provide direction.

Waiting for renewed strength, a renewed sense of purpose, a sense of direction, passion, and excitement.

Waiting for the strength to walk, to run, and to fly on eagle's wings.

Waiting.

I hate waiting.

I'll do it if I have to.  I'll do it if I have no choice.  But I struggle to wait with grace.

Partly, that's because I'm a doer.  I like to slice and dice a problem into manageable bits and wrestle it into submission.  I love troubleshooting.  I love the feeling of stepping back, finding a solution to something that is broken, and fixing it so it works, or works again.  So I don't much like it when I can't identify the problem, can't break it down, or can't find a solution.  I don't like waiting.

Partly, it's because I'm impatient.  Even when nothing is broken, per se, I hate waiting.  I hate waiting for traffic lights.  I hate waiting for the water to boil.  I hate waiting for my computer to boot up.  I hate waiting in line.  In the world of Marianne, everything should go flawlessly and smoothly all the time.  The waters should part before me, allowing effortless passage -- without waiting.

And that is nothing but pride.  I can't stand the thought that I can't find a solution.  I rail against the notion that there's nothing I can do.  I ought to be able to do it all.  I ought to be sufficient unto myself. Everyone around me ought to know how wonderful I am, and how precious my time is, and how I have big, important things to do, and should just jolly well get out of my way.  How dare they hinder me?  How dare God hinder me?  Doesn't he know how remarkable I am?  Doesn't he know how much I want to serve him, and do big things for him?  I'm a world-changer; doesn't he know that?  How dare he subject me to small things and expect me to settle?  Surely he must know he's wasting my talents?  

It's pride, downright ugly pride.  Every time I steam at a stop light, every time I mumble under my breath about how waiting for my computer to boot up is a waste of time, every time I chafe under my God's direction, I am bowing down to the Idol of Self.

I want to blame others.  I want to blame this culture.  After all, I live in a culture of Do.  My culture measures me by the value of what I accomplish.  Everywhere I turn, I'm reminded that I deserve that faster phone, that more powerful computer, that more beautiful body, that fancier car.  It's always got to be bigger, better, faster, more exciting.  I shouldn't have to wait for it -- 0% down, 0% interest, take now, pay later.  Time is money.  Money is power.  Go, go, go.  And that's all true.  I do live in a culture of Do.

But that's not my culture.  

If I follow Jesus, that is not my culture.  If I follow Jesus, I belong to a culture where the first is last, and the last, first, where the smallest is the greatest, and the greatest, the smallest.  I belong to a culture where my value is measured not by what I do, not because of anything about me at all, but by the value of the one I call Master.  A culture where time is not money, but a gift, given by the Giver, where sometimes the thing that brings the most glory to God is that I simply show up and march.  And wait.

So I can't blame anyone for the fact that I don't wait well.  It is my own depravity.  And yes, it's depravity.  No, this isn't attention-seeking self-abasement.  It's the truth.  Because every time I take secret (or not-so-secret) pride in the fact that I don't wait well, every time I indulge in eye-rolling, deep-sighing (or worse) complaining about having to wait, every time I shrug it off with a flippant comment about not having patience, every time I embrace the values of the culture in which I live but to which I do not belong, I bow again to the god of Self.  I turn away from Jesus and I serve an idol.  And the worst of it all is that I don't really think it's all that bad.  I think he doesn't really mind my betrayal of his love, that he smiles benevolantly when I make a comment like, "Lord, I need patience, and I need it right now!"

Lord, I need to turn from serving myself instead of you.  I need to repent from serving idols of my own making instead of following my Lord, my Saviour, my Creator.  I need to turn my back on the values of this culture, and embrace yours instead.  Father, I need your forgiveness for my pride, my arrogance, my sense of self-importance.  I need the blood of Jesus to cover my sins.  I need a fresh vision of my own sinfulness and your holiness.  Abba, show me yourself.  I need to see you.

And keep me waiting until I do.

What's On My Mind?

I was having a really bad day the other day.  It was the kind of day that just made me frustrated, discouraged, sad, and mad all at the same time.  Everything seemed to be going wrong.  I found out that some dear friends of mine were having a really hard time.  Good, God-honouring people who have done their best to love and serve him.  I heard about another two families that are facing life-and-death medical emergencies.  Again, good people, people who love the Lord, who, in my humble estimation, don't deserve this, and do deserve a miracle.  Several transport truck drivers and luxury sedan drivers decided that my little Fit did not belong on the road and that 20 km over the limit wasn't fast enough, and tried to bully me, brush me off, or summarily dispatch of me.  It was just one of "those days".

And I really, really wanted to vent about it on Facebook.

I could have said something cryptic and attention-seeking.  Something like, "<sigh> . . . can't wait for this day to be done . . . " .  People would have responded with things like this, "Awww, you ok?"  "Why, what's wrong?"  "((Hugs))" "Tomorrow's a new day!"  A few spiritual folks might have put something like, "Aww, praying for you."  I could have continued the attention-seeking with a comment like, "Oh, you know, life . . . " under my own status.

I could have said something passive-aggressive-vaguely-humourous.  Something like, "To the transport truck driver that tried to crawl up my tailpipe:  You don't Fit."  And that would have gotten a plethora of other sorts of responses.  "Haha!", "LOL", "Hope you're ok," that sort of thing.  People who know me and my car might even have thought me mildly clever, and might have followed up with a pun or two of their own.  People who don't know me or the car I drive might have been tempted to correct my bad capitalization.

I could have said something attention-seeking-disguised-as-heroic, making other people's difficulties out to be my own.  Maybe, "Boy, it's going to be a long night.  I'm baking muffins for one set of friends who are having a hard time, and cooking a meal for another set of friends who are struggling with a life-and-death medical emergency.  And then it's off to work again tomorrow."  I can just imagine the comments.  "Aww, you're such a good friend,"  "Wow, you've got a lot on your plate,"  "Don't overdo it," blah, blah, blah.

Maybe I could have taken the online gossiper prayer-warrior approach:  "Hey, everyone, please pray for friends of mine.  They're going through a really hard time right now, and their little boy is in the hospital and they don't know if he's going to make it.  They have to stay with him 24/7, and they're all just so exhausted but their little guy is so sick.  Pray for them, ok?"  And here comes the clincher -- "God knows who they are."  (That shows that I'm really interested in prayer and not at all interested in sharing a bit of gossip.)

Or maybe I could have just come across as spiritual super-hero.  "Wow, life is so hard right now, but I'm just keeping my eyes on Jesus.  He is my strength and song."  Everyone will be so impressed with how holy and special and spiritual I am, don't you think?  "Wow, Marianne, you're such an inspiration." "Thanks for being such a good example to me."  "Jesus will honour your commitment to him."  "All things work for our good!"

I could have done any of those things.  I see them all the time on Facebook.  I'm sure that an examination of my own newsfeed might reveal similar updates (although I hope not too many).  But more and more, when my fingers are hovering over my keyboard to update my status, I find myself going back to a verse in Psalm 73.  "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed the generation of your children."

The psalmist has plenty to complain about.  He looks around at his world and sees that horrible, miserable people have great lives, and great people have horrible, miserable lives.  He wonders to himself what the point is.  Why bother trying to live for God when it all goes horribly wrong anyway?  I can just see the Psalmist's status update:  "That's it!  I'm giving up!"  But then he says, "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed the generation of your children."  So he doesn't speak thus.  He doesn't speak at all.  Instead, he spends time in God's presence, and reorients himself around God, without saying anything to anyone.

So my fingers hang above the keyboard, and I wonder, Am I betraying the generation of your children by writing this?  Could what I am writing here cause someone who reads it to stumble?  Could it cause them to question the goodness of God?  You see, when I vent on Facebook, I'm not venting in private, even though I may be alone in the room.  I'm not venting to an individual I know has the spiritual wisdom and discernment to help me reorient myself to God, which is what I really need -- to be reoriented to God.   Those are good and right ways of dealing with my struggles and heartaches.  But I'm not doing those things by venting on Facebook.  I am not being real and vulnerable, or building genuine community.  Instead, I am venting to a congregation of anywhere from 50 to 500 people, if my friends' list is conservative and if my privacy settings are tight.  (If they're not, I could have an audience of over 100,000 people -- bigger than any mega-church in the States).  And even if I know all the people on my friends' list fairly well, I can't possibly know them all well enough to justify unloading my doubts and concerns, my questions for God, my hurts and my hangups to all of them.  I may cause them to doubt.  I may add to their already-heavy burden.  I may find myself "feeling" better, but oriented to myself and my dutiful Facebook friends rather than to Almighty God, which is nothing but idolatry. If I speak of these things, I am betraying the congregation of God's children.  And if I've indicated that I'm a Christian under my religious point of view, I'd go so far as to say that I am misusing and abusing God's name.

So I don't write any of it.  It's been a hard day.  So what?  They happen.  The world doesn't need to know that Marianne had a bad day.  It is enough that God knows it.  If I have to, I have real friends, face-to-face friends with whom I can share and cry and pray.  Someday, I'll be able to look back on this day, too, and see God's hand of faithfulness in it.

In the meantime, it is best that I stay silent.  The status update bar will remain blank.  

Horse Sense

My horse is always on the fringe of the herd.  It's not that the other horses pick on him so much, or gang up on him to hurt him, but he's always slightly shunned, overlooked, brushed aside.  They pin their ears at him a lot and tell him to go away.  He hangs out at the edges, not bullied or beaten up, just not part of the "in" crowd.  He's not one of the cool kids.  So he hangs out by himself a lot.

He's a lot like me in that.  I have always felt like I was a step behind, or out of step.  When everyone else was watching Downton Abby, I was watching documentaries on the disappearance of the earthworm. When Uggs came in, I couldn't justify spending the money on a pair of boot-like blobs that were, well, ugly.  I'd spent all my money on Vetrap, dewormer, fly spray, and tail-and-mane detangler.  When other people were discussing Kim somebody-or-another, and Miley Siren, I had to look the names up on Google to find out who they were (and then wished I could not know who they were).  When gals my age were getting married and having babies and raising children, I was teaching, and working in Indonesia, and going to seminary.  It's been like that since I was a small kid and sat at the side of the schoolyard reading a book instead of playing soccer or skipping double-dutch or any of the other things kids my age were doing.  I wasn't bullied.  I wasn't ganged up upon.  I was just slightly shunned, overlooked, brushed aside.  Not one of the "in" crowd.  Not one of the cool kids.

But that's where the similarities end.  Because Raphi accepts his position in life.  When the other horses pin their ears to move him away, he moves off without complaining.  When they come to take his succulent patch of grass, he steps aside.  When he's drinking water and another horse approaches, he leaves the water and lets them drink first.  He's learned that it's safer that way.  Pinned ears are followed by flying hooves if he doesn't.  The survival of the herd depends on each horse knowing his place.  And Raphi knows his place.  He doesn't try to fit in.  He doesn't try to fight back.  He just moves out of the way. It's the price he pays for being part of the herd.

I, on the other hand, learned to rage against the world.  I learned to fight.  Pin your ears at me and you'll feel my fists.  Try to take my succulent patch of grass, and you'll find it occupied by a tiger.  Don't mess with me.  I decided very early in life that I'd rather fight alone than be at the bottom of the herd pecking order.  I do not submit well.  I think my way is better than Raphi's.  It makes me kind of mad for his sake when I watch him submit to all the other horses.  At one level, I love his meekness, but at the same time, it makes me kind of mad.

But over the last couple of weeks, I've begun to wonder . . .

You see, I've been working really hard at building my relationship with my horse.  He's learning to trust me.  He's learning that I've got his best interests at heart.  He's learning that I bring good gifts -- like hay, and carrots, and apples, and even, on special occasions, a peppermint.  (Is anything so lovely as velvety horse noses and pepperminty horse-breath when they nuzzle your hair?)  He's learning to follow me without a rope because he'd rather be with me than with the rest of the herd.  He knows that when the other horses try to crowd him, I'll send them away.  When Abby or Grace or Contigo reach out to nip him on the haunches, I'll keep their teeth away.  When Caliber tries to drive him away from the water, I'll let him drink in peace.  He knows that when he's with me, I'll protect our little herd of two.  Because he is so quick to submit, he is willing to submit to me.  And because he is so willing to submit to me, he suddenly finds himself in a more privileged position.  The other horses move away from him -- when he is with me.  The other horses let him have the good grass -- when he is with me.  The other horses let him drink first -- when he is with me.  Because he is with me.  Because he submits to me, he is lifted up in the eyes of the rest of the herd.  And a couple of weeks ago, I watched with amusement as the herd dynamics shifted.  Abby tried to take a nip at Raphi while I was there.  I sent her away.  And I smiled, because Raphi stepped safely behind me, and then, from over my shoulder, pinned his ears at an already-leaving Abby.  It was the horse equivalent to blowing a raspberry at the bigger kid from behind mom's legs.  Raphi could send Abby away, not by his own strength, but by mine -- by the strength of the one to whom he had submitted.  It's nice to be my horse's hero.

It made me wonder what it would be like to have someone in your life who was stronger than the rest of the herd, who could stand up for you so you didn't have to fight for yourself.  What if there was someone who would stick up for me the way I was willing to stick up for Raphi?  What if there was someone who could be for me what I am for Raphi, someone who loved me, who gave me good gifts, and who had my best interests at heart?  Someone who wanted to teach me to be brave and strong and trust him, but who understood my fears and uncertainties and who didn't shame me for them, someone who was willing to fight for me?  I wonder, if I had someone like that in my life, would I recognise him?  Would I be willing to submit?

Or would I, so used to fighting, so used to standing alone against the world, and so determined not to submit for fear of being pushed around, fight even my hero?

I stand and watch my horse meekly move out of the way.
I watch him submit so willingly.  I watch how, when he submits, he is lifted up.  I look at my own useless raging, the loneliness, the bumps and bruises on my heart and soul, brought on by a life of scrapping and clawing my way to the top.  It seems so counter-intuitive, this submitting to be lifted up.  It seems so illogical.  And yet, I wonder . . .

I wonder if my horse is wiser than I.

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up"  (James 4:10).

When Wings are Clipped

"Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength.

They will rise up on wings like eagles.

They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint."

But lately, I feel like I'm barely crawling along.

It's not that anything is really wrong, because it's not.  It's the beginning of a new school year, and I'm glad about that.  I still love my job.  I love going out and hanging with my horse.  I love coming home to a dog who beats me with her tail because she's so glad to see me.  I have friends and family.  Indeed, I am richly blessed.  It's not that anything is really wrong.

It's just that God feels absent.

And I miss him.

Dreadfully.

Now, don't start lecturing me about how God is never absent from his children, how he never leaves us or forsakes us.   I know that.  I didn't say that God is absent, only that he feels absent.  I know he's as present with me now as he has ever been.  I know he still loves me.  I know he still cares.  I know that as much as I know anything, and maybe more.  My faith is not wavering.

And please, please don't give me the line that if God feels absent it's not because he's moved but because I have.  That line is just cruel.  It's cruel because it sounds like it might be true, but it isn't.  I have spent hours searching my soul, and while I know that there is much in that soul that, on a daily basis, does not line up with Jesus' way, I also know that the heart of my soul longs for the things of the Lord and anguishes over those things in my life that aren't of him.  No, he hasn't moved, but neither have I.  I still love him, still pray, still spend time in the Word, still seek to serve him, still want to follow his heart.

Yet, he feels absent.

And I miss him.

Dreadfully.

The missing of him weighs on my bones with a wearying intensity that startles me sometimes.  Rise up on wings like eagles?  Run?  Walk?  I feel like my feet are so heavy I can barely lift them to gain a painful shuffle forward.

And please don't assume I'm depressed.  I'm pretty sure I'm not.  There are many things that I enjoy, many reasons to get up in the morning, satisfying things to fill my day and to put me to sleep at night.  I don't feel depressed.  I just feel like God is absent.  And I miss him dreadfully.

So what do I do?

I'm tempted to spend endless hours in introspection, finding some way to blame myself for the state of affairs, so that I can then correct what's wrong and restore the feeling of God's presence.  I want to dredge up every possible sin I've ever committed and somehow make atonement for it, thereby forcing God to show himself.  But while there is great benefit in taking inventory and making amends, doing it for the purpose of earning God's favour falls dangerously close to salvation by works.  The fact is, my sins are fully atoned, and I am resting in that and trusting in it, and this yawning emptiness is not a result of unforgiven sin.  So I won't do that.

I'm tempted to run around endlessly trying to find something to fill the emptiness.  Maybe I need to try something different, have a new experience, explore a new theology -- something that will feel exciting and fresh.  But that sounds an awful lot like abandoning the known springs of living water to dig cisterns of my own, and that's always dangerous.  So I''ll hold tight to what has been tested and true.

I'm tempted to despair.  Maybe it's not just that I feel like God has abandoned me, but that he actually has.  No, no, that's all wrong.  I know that I know that I know that God is True, and his love is steadfast.  So I will remind myself of that truth every 30 seconds if I need to, to fight off any despair.

I'm tempted to tell myself that it's nonsense, that I shouldn't feel this way, that I don't really feel like God is absent, that I shouldn't feel this way.  I am tempted to distract myself from the feeling by working extra hard, playing extra hard, living extra hard.  But that is living a lie.  The feeling is real.  The feeling does not reflect reality, but it is a real feeling, and pretending I don't feel that way is to simply don a mask.  I won't do that either.  No, I will try to find the balance between respecting the feeling but not allowing it to rule me.

So what will I do?

I will carry on.  I will bring my feelings to God.  I will acknowledge them and feel them and grieve them.  I feel like God is absent, and I miss him dreadfully, and it is breaking my  heart.  It is just a feeling, but I will sit with that feeling in the presence of a God who feels absent but is not, until such time as he shows himself again. Why am I feeling like that?  I don't know.  I'm not sure it matters.  It's part of the ebb and flow of life.
 
I won't hide.
I won't cut and run. 
I won't wallow or feel guilty.

I will do the hardest thing of all:  I will wait.  Today, I may be crawling, but I will wait.

I will wait for the Lord, and he will renew my strength.

I will mount up on wings like eagles.

I will run and not grow weary.

I will walk and not be faint.