Pain

I sometimes wonder why I think the things I do. What's my motivation? When is it all just a lie created to facilitate indulgence in some particular emotion or attract someone's attention? I don't know. If there's one thing I've realized from spending a fair amount of time analyzing my motivations it's that I never have totally pure motives for anything. I pray and worship and long for God partially because I just want to be with him, partially because I want to do my best for him and believe this is a good step, and partially because I know it won't work, and I'll be able to say that I did my best and people will think I'm a good Christian. I pick fights with God and ask "tough questions" partially because it's a natural and necessary part of my spiritual growth, partially out of habit, and maybe partially because it seems to earn admiration from other people. And so on.
So when I write these blog things and tell you about my struggles and frustrations, I often wonder if it's a responsible thing to do, or if I'm just taking advantage of whatever caused you to be interested in my thoughts to burden you with my personal problems and hog your time, sympathy, and prayers. I think I am, to a degree, but of course part of me has nobler goals. (And a part of me just really cries out for attention and connection and support. I think that's legitimate, as long as I'm honest about it.) Of course I can't go on without saying again that I want just as desperately to love and support you. If you're reading this you're probably either someone who I care deeply about or someone I don't know as well as I'd like and really want to love and support. I say as often as I can without becoming cheap and cliché that I don't want anyone I know to ever feel like they have no one to talk to. There's nothing you could do that would honor and please me more than to depend on me. We all need somebody to lean on.
So, backing up a little, I'd like to talk a bit about psychological stuff. As I said, I often question why I do this whole struggling with God thing, and of course, there's more than one reason. Just the way I'm wired, I seem to have problems achieving "child-like faith". Indeed, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to be able to believe everything without questioning. But I try to be as aware as possible of why I do the things I do. It's good to be able to recognize, say, that I'm angry with someone not because of anything they've done, but because I'm tired and stressed. I've alluded to the idea of indulging in emotions - I think I do this a lot. I can be fairly emotional when I choose to be - I can weep in a worship service, I can be miserable over a girl, I can feel strong or weak, and I can get very angry with God. There is a rather curious thing about me (though I have a suspicion it's quite common). I like pain.
I like the taste of blood. I like seeing myself bleed. I saw a warrior in a movie once who had a gash on his forehead and streaks of dry blood all down his face, and I thought it looked incredibly cool. That image has always stuck in my mind, and acquired some peculiar kind of significance. I don't know why I mention this specifically, because I can't explain it.
Anyway, I have a fairly typical (I think) male attitude towards gory movies. Seeing pain and brutal death provokes a strange mixture of revulsion and intoxication, so that I can sometimes weep at the sight of a character's agony and sometimes laugh. The movie Gladiator is incredibly interesting to me, because I'm horrified that the people at the coliseum could actually be entertained by this kind of perverse slaughter, and yet I myself (and presumably many other people) are still willing to pay to see it. Sure, the movie's not real, but what about reality TV shows? Ok, so they're not totally "real" either, but there is still some incredible attraction for us to seeing real people experience real pain. People eat worms on Fear Factor or have their hearts broken on the Bachelor, and we take some strange pleasure in the fact that these are real people degrading themselves for our amusement. Perhaps I'll be better equipped to analyze this after taking some psychology or something. For now, I realize that I'm digressing once again, and must try to come back to my point.
I like pain. There's something about the music of Evanescence that really appeals to me. I feel like I can relate to it somehow, even though I've never experienced most of the romantic sorrow that seems to be the inspiration for their music. "My Immortal" particularly strikes a chord with me.

these wounds won't seem to heal
this pain is just too real
there's just too much that time cannot erase.

I don't know what it is about those words that captivates me. I've really never felt anything much like what this song expresses. I've tried to make it about my frustration with God, but it just doesn't line up. I think it's just the idea of irreversible loss that grabs me. The idea that there could be a sorrow that never entirely leaves; deep scars that never wholly mend.
I had a dream. In my dream I encountered a creature - a girl - who had been horribly abused and disfigured. The image was so terrible that I jolted awake. I soon went back to sleep and forgot her, but the memory came back to me in a flash (as my dreams sometimes do) a couple days later. I could describe her vividly, but I don't think I should - some horrors should not be shared. It is enough to say that she was mutilated and ruined - heart, soul, body and mind. All her humanity had been wrung out of her and she was utterly beyond my help. She could not understand love or compassion, cringing at my touch and gazing at me in helpless, senseless terror. It was absolutely heart-rending.
And yet there's something mysteriously attractive in this.
For many years I dreamed of being a martyr. Of course I didn't think this through (I was younger then) but it seemed like an easy way to impress God. I now realize that there are no easy ways to impress God (unlike other people) and anyway, dying for something - at least for me - wouldn't be that big a deal. Much harder to live for God than to die for him.
The hard thing about living for God is knowing what to do. There are these incredibly powerful verses that I latch onto about suffering for God, but they seem so far removed from anything in my life. Like Luke 9:23 "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." That's a very powerful metaphor, but I don't understand how it relates to me. Acts 9:16 is one of my favorites. God in a vision appears to Ananias and tells him to go to Saul, the greatest enemy of the Church, because he is chosen by God. Ananias argues, but gives in when God says "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." If you're going to do great things for God, it seems you have to suffer greatly.
Of course, this is all written to persecuted people. To be a Christian at that time was to suffer. These days, we don't know what suffering means. We can't relate to what our Holy Perfect Word of God says because our position is so radically different from that of the original recipients. There isn't a lot in the New Testament that speaks to wealthy, secure, pious religious people. Though something like Matthew 23 may be applicable. (Look it up.)
It's not easy being a fanatical Christian with no cross. I often bemoan the lack of suffering in my life, even praying that God would send me hardships. (Generally this seems to work - in that my life takes a turn for the worse - but never quite in the way I'd intended.) I sometimes wonder if all my doubts and problems with God are just a desperate attempt to stir up some suffering.
Pain has more benefits than spiritual growth - it also kind of feels good. Johnny Cash really connects with me here.

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel.
I focus on the pain,
The only thing that's real

Generally I'd rather feel pain than feel nothing. Pain is very real. If you can't find meaning in your life, pain is a good substitute. There is something noble about suffering. People will notice you, care for you and listen to you if you've experienced pain. "Life is pain, Highness." If you're not hurting, maybe you're not living.
I think to some degree I'm a pain junkie. I've never cut myself, but I think I'd like to. I have to watch myself. I know it's not a good thing to do, but I think I'd like it.
It's been years since I last had a cut lip. I remember that blood tastes good.
I have a theory about people who suffered in the Bible. Or it might be more accurate to say that I had a theory, which I now disagree with. Somewhere along the line - maybe when I read "Jesus Freaks" - I developed this idea that God numbs the pain of people who suffer for him. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo, who were supposed to be burned alive, but walked out unharmed. I had the idea that when Paul was beaten and whipped and stoned that it was almost a surreal experience, where God supernaturally turned off his nerves so that he could stand there and take it, praising God the whole time. But somewhere along the line I started to wonder if I was mistaken.
What if Paul felt every lash that was layed on his back, screaming and writhing in a pool of his own blood, his back torn apart and his brain overwhelmed by the inexplicable pain? What if he felt ever rock that struck him until he was knocked unconscious, bruised and bleeding, an inch from death? What if he boar every trail - all the hunger and cold and agony and shame - on his own shoulders, and the only help God offered was to give him the strength not to give up? What if God made an example of Paul not of his power to rise above physical suffering but to endure anything for his sake? That's a big difference.
I've always liked the story of Elijah out-running the king's chariot. I've run a little bit of cross country in my life, and every race made me curse myself for my foolishness in volunteering for this misery. When I run a long distance it hurts my lungs and my legs in ways that I've never managed to enjoy. But wouldn't it be cool to be able to run like Elijah did - feeling no pain, only the inexhaustible power of God coursing through his body, propelling him faster than any man has ever run?
But what if that's not how it was? What if Elijah was running out of fear and desperation, struggling to take just one more step with his body screaming and his lungs on fire. What if the miracle was simply to keep him teetering on the threshold of exhaustion, always feeling that he could go no further, yet finding the strength for one more step, one more step... What if that's what it's like to be the recipient of the power of God - to be not a cup that overflows but just a jar of oil that somehow never quite runs out? Not to be rescued from Room 101 but to be given the strength to stand firm even as your fear overwhelms you and the rats gnaw through your flesh? This is my theory of what the abundant life looks like.
But I'm a long way from there. I'm not much more than a depressed, confused, wretched little Christian who argues and fumes at God.
I'm very weak. I'm writing, in fact, in a moment of particular weakness. Perhaps I shouldn't be writing this at all. Perhaps this is one of those things that just shouldn't be said on the internet. But hear I am, saying it.
I can't do this. It's a good idea, but I don't have the strength to pull it off. I can't walk away from God or from my longing for him. I have a feeling that this is a critical point - that if I give in now and go back to my longing I may never be able to get out. (Quite possible, of course, that I just need to go to bed and not worry about it.) It's all I can do to hold on right now. Who knows how much longer I can last before I break down and call out to him. I'll cry out to God and be answered by the darkness. I'll pour out my pretty words and my ugly heart and I'll yearn for him and be weak again, and it will do me no good.
Pain is not so bad, really. I can live on it for a while, and sometimes I need to. When my hope is gone, all I have to live for is my pain.