[+/-] Seeking the God of Jacob

Some days I struggle heroically against the phrase "relationship with God". Other days I give up and go with it. Today is a day of the latter sort. I tell you this because I'm about to talk about my (ug) relationship with God, and I feel the need to apologize for this crime.

The thing about my relationship with God is that it's so different from any other relationship, because God is so incredibly different from anyone else with whom I relate. First of all - as anyone who reads this blog regularly should have drilled into their head by now - God has absolutely the world's worst communication skills. Which is my bitter, sarcastic way of saying he is silent and detatched. He doesn't tell me what he thinks, or how he feels, or what I'm doing wrong, or why he does what he does, or anything at all. In terms of two way communication, my relationship with God is on the same level as my relationship with William Shakespeare. At least with Will I have the excuse that he died before I was born. Which raises an interesting question... but I'll come back to that.

The second - perhaps the most significant - way in which my relationship with God is different is that He is God. Holy dang, that's crazy. I'm seeking (if indeed I am seeking) a relationship with God. The Lord. The one whose name is spelled in small caps in my Bible, the one whose personal pronouns are capitalized, the one who speaks in red ink. Get what I'm saying here?
These two points together make this relationship totally impossible. There is nothing I or any creature that ever lived can do to have a relationship with God if he is not willing to communicate. For this reason, several months ago I promised myself that I would stop seeking a relationship with God.

That's my mind speaking. I have a good mind - a mind that calculates and reasons and works things through. But I also have a heart - a heart that longs and yearns and desires. And for this reason, several days ago I broke my promise. I sought God.

I'm sorry, I need to interject here. I need to apologize, because as I write this I'm thinking about how to make it sound good, and how to convince you of stuff, and how I can maybe move you. This is my constant struggle - to know when to turn off writerman and just be as real as I possibly can. I don't want to manipulate you now, or push on you some kind of impression of God or myself. I hate that I feel sometimes like I'm taking God to court, and you're my jury. Like if I can convince you that God has wronged me somehow, he'll have to give me what I want. This is sick, but I can never totally overcome it. But I want to do my best here. I write this for myself as much as for you, to remind myself to keep my focus.

The other night my heart was longing for an encounter with God, and my head, which says this is stupid and counterproductive, conceded. And I cried out to God. I longed for him. I begged him to draw near to me. It makes me think of my favorite worship song, "Give us clean hands". It goes like this:

We bow our hearts, we bend our knees
O Spirit come make us humble
We turn our eyes from evil things
O Lord we cast down our idols

Give us clean hands give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Give us clean hands, give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another

O God let us be a generation that seeks
That seeks Your face, O God of Jacob
O God let us be a generation that seeks
That seeks Your face, O God of Jacob

This song is so powerful to me because it talks at the beginning about us doing the worshipy stuff - preparing our hearts and our bodies and turning our thoughts toward God. But then most of the song is this desperate plea for God to help us worship him. It acknowledges that we need God to help and guide and strengthen us, making us humble, washing our hands and our hearts, giving us the dedication and the strength to seek Him, and Him alone. This song rocks me. (Ya, and it's cool that it says "God of Jacob". Kind of personalizes it. Except of course that my real name isn't Jacob.)

So the other night I bowed my heart and bent my knees and begged God to draw near to me. I tried to come not on my own merit - my own humility or goodness - but with only a desperate need to encounter God, trusting him to do what I cannot to reconcile us. Shit, I hate that I'm writing this. Whatever I say, it's either bragging or whining or manipulating. It's selfish, because I don't know how it will affect some who will read it. (If any of this bothers you, I hope you'll talk to me about it, or to someone you trust.) And I feel like I should stop talking about this stuff, because my whole blog seems to be harping on this subject, and every attempt to get away from it has failed. Ok, let me try this again:

I'm discouraged and confused, because I really want to believe that there is a God who loves me and is near me. As much as I talk about being in a God-forsaken world, I can't just accept this analysis. I don't know if this is God's gift to me or if it's my greatest weakness, but I cannot truly forsake this hope that someday - even today - God will make himself known to me. (Please don't talk to me about heaven. I know about heaven, but it does me no good here and now. Unless you think I should kill myself.) I cannot forsake this hope, but neither can I embrace it. I live in limbo between hope and apostasy. Every now and then, the hope wins out and I fling myself at Gods feet again, trusting him, begging him once more. But with no result. And this is where I get depressed. The familiar hopeless fury hit me yesterday. But I decided I didn't want to do this phase in my cycle. I need to feel like I'm making progress somewhere.

I think about the people who will read this. I suppose that's you. There are two camps on this God-seeking issue: there are those that tell me to go for it, keep seeking, don't give up, and then there are those that say this is hopeless, a waste of my time and energy, and will only ever drag me down. I've tried to believe both, at one time or another, but I can never make it stick. As long as God turns me down, I will never be able to fully believe that he wants a relationship with me, and as long as I have this desire, I will never be able to fully believe that he will not fulfill it.

You know what drives me crazy? I've told you before, but it's gnawing at me, so I'll tell you again. What really drives me crazy is that it's my fault. Why is Jacob angry with God? Because he is imperfect. If I feel wronged by God, it's my fault. I want so badly to scream at Him, to tear a strip off God for this shit he puts me through, but I can't. I can't. Every time I try, the words die in my throat. I can never bring myself to really yell at God because I know that he is by definition good and just and loving, and everything he does to me is for my own good, and if there's anything that's truly wrong between us, it's my fault. Which leaves me with this maddening rage that I cannot release. And anyway, how can I be angry with someone who may not exist? The other thing is that whatever my problem is, he know it. He knows what prevents me from either having the relationship with him that I desire, or from killing that desire. He knows, but he won't tell me. He won't even tell those people he apparently speaks to, so that they can tell me. See, this is the part where I want to say "God is a jerk and I hate him", but I can't.

I think I've given up all hope of making this into a coherent, focused entry. But that's ok. I'll just keep jumping around. Next point: I'm trying to finally think through what it is I want from God. What am I actually asking when I pray that he would "meet with me", or a thousand other phrases? If I say I'm seeking a real relationship with God, what do I mean? I think what I'm looking for is an interaction - a divine parallel to the kinds of things that my friends do for me. Things like talking with me, showing that they're interested in me by looking into my eyes, showing their delight in me by smiling at me, or giving me a physical sense of their nearness by touching me. I think I want something like this with God. But as always, my desire is more complicated then that. I think part of it is just wanting assurance that I'm right to believe that God exists. Not that it would allow me to go out and convince people of his existence (I'm not really into that) but it would be nice to know for myself that there is a God out there who knows me and loves me and hears me. And then I think there's part of me that just wants a cool experience - something like being knocked to the floor, or seeing a flame above my head, or feeling some kind of crazy sensation. I don't do drugs, but I want to get high on something, so I go to God and ask him to give me a fix - to stimulate my senses in some amazing way.

Again, I don't know if it's right or profitable for me to seek this - that why it ruins me to think about it. Whether I'm feeding or fighting this urge I feel guilty, as if both are somehow shameful or wrong. There's no rest from this struggle. It's an ache that won't go away. I'm trying to remember how I was doing a few days ago, before this happened. Was I happy then? Was I doing the things God wants me too? Maybe. I think I though I was, for the most part. I can't remember. I can never remember emotions.

Where do I go from here? I really don't want to fall back into darkness, like I was in the summer. I don't want to be depressed again. But what can I do? I can't not care about this, and I can't do anything about it. What's the point of fighting the depression? I'll only be fooling myself, drugging myself, pretending to myself that it's all ok.

I hate this kind of existence. I hate always wondering if I'm lying to myself. I hate never knowing when I'm real. I hate this nagging suspicion that I've never been real.

God, if you exist, deliver me from this.

[+/-] Prayer and the Art of Midterm Writing

"Why did you choose to love a God? I think you'll find the romance... one-sided."

I threw that quote in because I liked it when I first heard it, but I couldn't find it until now. It's from the movie Troy. And now on a completely different note:

I wrote a Philosophy midterm recently - an in-class essay. we've been reading through Plato's Republic, so the assignment was to write about one of the theories presented so far. He gave us the list of topics a week before the test. I started thinking about it at maybe 10 or 11 the night before. I soon realized that I knew nothing about most of the subject options, because of course I am way behind on my reading. So I decided that I would tackle Glaucon's theory of the nature of justice, because that's right near the start of the book. Then I realized that I had no idea how to defend or attack this theory.

It was late in the evening and I was sitting on my bed feeling stupid and worthless, trying to find something in Glaucon's argument that could be disagreed with. Soon I started thinking about how I'd gotten 42% on my Political Science midterm last week (to this day I don't know why, though I plan to talk to my prof about it) and how I was probably just really dumb or something, and how I'd flunk out of College and have to work on an assembly line at the dessert factory for the rest of my life. I wasn't actually thinking all of that, but I was feeling pretty bad about the whole thing. So I did something I usually try to avoid doing. I prayed. I prayed that God would grant me some kind of incredible philosophical knowledge so that I'd be able to find something to say about friggen Glaucon and his theory and that I'd get a good mark on my exam. I really try not to pray for marks in school, because it feels like I'm turning God into a vending machine, but in times like this I have no other choice. So I prayed. Then I went to bed.

In the morning I got up and started thinking about Glaucon. Within about 10 minutes of mulling I had my argument. It was all so simple. I don't know why I couldn't get it last night. In fact, I really don't know why Plato didn't think of this. (Probably because there's some glaring logical flaw I can't see.) I went to school and wrote my paper and I felt good about it. I got it back today and he gave me a 90 for it. So that's cool. (I mean, he didn't say "Holy shit, you've solved one of the great philosophical problems that has plagued philosophers for the last 2000 years!" but I got a good mark.) Which leave me with one problem: I think God may have just answered a prayer. I mean, it's like just about any answered prayer in that it seemed kind of silly and obvious once I saw it, and there's maybe even odds that I just thought it through on my own, but I did come humbly before God and ask him to help me out. So I think I might be stuck with an answered prayer. At least, I should probably give Him the benefit of the doubt.

God is so confusing - did you notice that? Maybe this is supposed to be a faith building thing, so that I'll realize that God can and will do this one really huge thing that I'm asking him. Maybe it's an encouragement that I'm not stupid at school. Maybe it's just a random answer to prayer for no reason I'll ever know. Or maybe I'm a smart boy and I figured it all out by myself, and God had nothing to do with it.

I'm reading Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire again, because I'm thinking about prayer. It's so weird. First of all, Jim Cymbala sounds a bit conservative to me now, and it's weird to think that God's working powerfully through his ministry. But more significantly, he prays and stuff happens. Bi-ZARRE. I can just hear my Bible School teachers: "there are two viewpoints on this book: descriptive and prescriptive. Scholars are divided over whether this is meant to be a model for our churches here and now, or whether it's simply the way God related to a certain group long ago in a land far away."

People tell me to test God out on this prayer thing. They tell me I should find something and pray about it and believe it will happen, and God will come through. Which sounds like spiritual suicide, but I've decided to do it. I've found something that I care about and I've decided to pray hardcore that it will happen and try my best to believe. This is scary because of the huge risk involved. I guess I'm betting the farm on this one - if it doesn't work out my faith will probably be crushed. But as some guy named Arthur C. Clark once said: A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

[+/-] Batter My Heart

I found this poem the other day. I love it. I think it expresses beautifully the way I often feel about my relationship with God.

Holy Sonnets: XIV

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

- John Donne

[+/-] A Prayer

This is a bit of a departure for me, but I just wanted to share a quick thought with you. This morning I was singing an old chorus to myself and I suddenly heard the worlds differently than I ever had before (I think because I still have that stuff from Matthew 25 fermenting in my mind). The song was Open Our Eyes Lord, and it's my prayer for today.

Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus,
To reach out and touch Him,
And say that we love Him.
Open our ears, Lord
And help us to listen.
Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus

I sang that song through a few times, thinking about each line in the light of Jesus' statement that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." What might it mean for God to open my eyes and let me see Jesus? How I could reach out and touch him, or say that I love him? How I could listen to Jesus? I guess I'm taking an almost transubstantiational view of service. It's a little more mystical than I like to be, but it's beautiful.

[+/-] Love

I watched Fahrenheit 9-11 the other day. It was kind of frustrating. I'm not a big fan of George Bush, but it's clear that Michael Moore has no interest in presenting an unbiased story. Basically, he's just the left-wing propaganda alternative to all the right-wing propaganda out there. It's irritating because I think there's some important information in there, like the election scam and the Iraq/WMD scam, but it's all sensationalized into near-obscurity. It seems that Moore's primary goal is not to expose conspiracy and injustice, but to make Bush look like a buffoon. It's not about being the voice of justice or compassion or whatever, it's about providing a flavor of closed-minded, wild-eyed, slogan-shouting dogma for those with liberal tastes. It's about fighting propaganda with propaganda.

That being said, the movie did have some compelling content. The part that really struck me was a clip of a distraught Iraqi woman outside her demolished home, weeping and crying out to Allah to avenge her. I found myself agreeing with her - hating these people and these powers and this hypocritical, superficially compassionate culture we live in that commits such injustices, and hoping that God will hear her prayers and kick someone's ass.

Remember, O LORD , what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. "Tear it down," they cried, "tear it down to its foundations!" O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us - he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

(ten points to anyone who spotted the inconsistency in me wishing God will pour out wrath on "Edom" in this case.)

We recently had a civic election. I've always thought civic elections are the dumbest of all elections, because no one really knows who has what opinion on what issue, and the issues themselves really don't matter. I didn't pay much attention, but I'm pretty sure one of the top issues for most of the city council candidates in my ward was sidewalks. "Vote for Bob, he'll fix your sidewalk." This strikes me as stupid. We're also supposed to vote for school-board trustees, but I didn't know the name of a single person who was running until I read the official list a half-hour before going to vote. (There were only two candidates. I voted for the guy, because my mom knew him once, and she said he was nice.) Even the mayoral election is a bit of a joke. It seems like half the atricles I read in the paper were about who's signs were better, or who's wife throws better parties, or whether so-and-so should have been a bit more diplomatic about a certain issue. My voting it's self is largely based on appearances. What's-his-name is well dressed. This guy's too cocky. That guy's got a dumb slogan. If anyone hasn't figured this out yet, elections are popularity contests. We talk about freedom and democracy but we really care mostly about being impressed, flattered, or entertained.

The day after the election I was walking downtown and came across a news crew who were asking people what they thought of the election. I wanted to tell them that I thought it was a joke because we are so uninformed, that I thought it was hypocritical, because we really only care about a person's appearance and charisma and the design of their yard signs, that I thought it was overblown, because the issues are sidewalk cracks and potholes, that I thought it was shameful because we care more about whether we cheered for the winning guy in our little contest than famine and genocide and injustice throughout the world.

I read an article on Michael Moore a while ago in which he said that politics has become popular (in the States). Everyone has an opinion now, and it's uncool to be politically apathetic. This can be good, but what we seem to have now is a lot of people with uninformed opinions, which is quite dangerous. What I see happening is basically politics as a sport. Pick a guy and cheer for him. Be passionate and dogmatic about it. Believe that the opposing candidates are evil. Perhaps it's uncool not to vote, but it's still not uncool to be uninformed. It's funny how much I can form passionate opinions based on a half-hour discussion with a friend about who's doing a better PR job. It's funny how my feeling that I should care about politics can turn me into some kind of zealot, and it hardly matters for what or for whom. Pick a team. Because I live in Alberta, I cheer for the Conservatives. Liberals are scum. If I lived in Ontario, it is likely that I would be a Liberal fan. If I was a French Quebecer, I would almost certainly support the Bloc. And it's not just politics - we do this in all kinds of areas. I figure it's cool to be pro-peace, socialist, anti-America, Christian, religiously tolerant... and an Oilers fan. But I've said all this before.

I've decided to sponsor a child through Compassion Canada. Some people think you should keep this type of thing secret - don't let your right hand know what you're left is doing-type thing - but I figured "what the hell, you guys already know most of what I do - good and bad." I've decided to sponsor a child because I am filthy rich, and people are living in squalor. I'm going to put at least $35 a month of my money where my mouth is, because it doesn't matter that I feel bad for people if I don't help them. You might say I'm "buying a pennyworth of paradise", but it's a start. Quick Bible story, from the Jacob Heretical Version.

Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' "They also will answer, 'Ok Lord, let's skip the "when did we see you hungry and so forth and did not help you?" bit because we just went through that with the other group, and the dilalogue will seem a lot more realistic if we don't all repeat each other. (Seriously God, fire your editor.) But let us say in our defense, God, that we really did care when we saw those street people, and when we heard about disasters and famines and war on the TV. We really cared God, we felt just awful about it, and we meant to do something about it. You know, we talked to our friends about it. We wrote about it in our blogs. God, we hated multi-national corporations with the best of them. We just never got to the... you know... the feeding and the sheltering and the clothing and the visiting.' He will reply, 'To be fair then, I should think about letting you into heaven.'

I think this is a bit of a "problem passage" (free translation notwithstanding). Seems pretty clear that those who don't show love to other people will burn in Hell. (As a point of interest, can anyone refute this interpretation?) The Bible's pretty clear that Love is something you do, not something you feel. The following verses on the importance of love (from a more widely accepted translation.)

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love... he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth.

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

Love is not a feeling; it is a decision. It is not simply action, (1 Cor 13) but it requires action. Love is an attitude that is acted on. Love is a process. Love is not about trying to like everyone, in fact, love is greatest when it is directed toward those we really don't like. ("Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven... If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?")

This whole post seems a bit disjointed to me. I'm not sure how to tie it all together. I guess the gist of it is that I'm thinking that our western culture is hugely hypocritical. We like to think that we care about justice and freedom and equal opportunity, but we don't. We care about ourselves - our comfort, our convenience and our wealth. I'm still working this through, and if it I'm speaking in generalities, it's because I'm still uninformed about what's happening in our world. I want to become informed about injustice and inequality, but more than that I want to do something about it. I want to love.

[+/-] Faith

For those who are keeping track, the new best thing ever is reallivepreacher.com. Big thanks to my good friend Søren for hooking me up. Seriously, if you're ever looking to read a good blog, you gotta check out the preacher. This guy is pure, raw awesome. (If you do read it, read in chronological order, starting with the very first post. It will take you a long time, but if you're serious about reading a blog, this is the only way to do it.)

Talked to an elder from my church the other day about the whole idea of giving away huge amounts of money and trusting God to provide when I need him to. He asked me what exactly I expected God to do. I said I wasn't expecting anything specifically, just that he would keep me fed and clothed and pay my tuition, at the least. Sure, God might provide money in miraculous ways, or somehow give me back twice what I gave, or show me how he used my money to do wonderful things and advance his kingdom. Any of these things would be cool, but at the least, I would expect God to meet my physical needs and pay for school. He asked how I'd feel if God didn't meet these requirements. It hadn't occurred to me. I had thought about the possibility of God "failing" me - breaking my trust and leaving me destitute - but I hadn't considered that such a result might conceivably be the divine plan of an active and involved God. At this moment I realized that God allowing me to give recklessly and then suffer for it would not necessarily mean that he wasn't watching over me, just that he chooses not to intervene in my life.

More and more I'm realizing that there is nothing I can do to force God to act visibly in my life. He cannot be bribed, tricked, goaded, coerced, bought, threatened, taunted or bought. He is not a vending machine. He is not a businessman. He is not a trader or a philanthropist or a rich uncle. God does not make deals. He needs nothing. He wants nothing, except my obedience. God is sovereign and supreme. He is eternal, immortal, invisible. He understands me perfectly, even when I don't understand myself. I am his possession, to do with as he pleases, and he is my lord and master, acknowledged or not, immovable and unquestionable. He is God.

I heard a Pentecostal preacher once who said that he really didn't have any proof for the existence of the God of the Bible, except that his promises can be tested and found to be true. This was surprizing in its self, because I figured a charismatic big-wig would have had his share of supernatural experiences. If I were to ask a Pentecostal preacher why I should believe in God, I would expect to hear about signs and wonders and how he can feel the Holy Spirit moving and stuff like that. But this guy apparently wasn't like that. (I'm not saying that no-one has real spirit-experiences, just that this guy seemingly hadn't. I liked him - he reminded me of me, only he was older and smarter and a better speaker.) This guy says if you want proof that God is active in our world, test his promises. The specific promise he was focusing on that night was the tithing promise in Malachi 3:10-12.

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.

Unfortunately, Pentecostal Preacher didn't really explain why he thought this promise still applied to us, new-covenant North American Gentiles 2400 years later. I mean, maybe it does apply, sort of, in some watered down form, but I don't think it has to. And from what I've seen, God doesn't always pour out material blessings on those who tithe. I'm not even sure if God would look after your most basic needs if you tithe. If a starving beggar-boy in a third world country gives away a penny out of every dime he makes, will God keep him from dying? I don't know, I haven't tested this, but I doubt it. The problem with these promise-claimer people is that they'll take any promise or blessing anywhere to anyone and claim it for themselves, ignoring both scriptural and cultural context as well as any restrictions and concurrent curses or punishments. I'd like to study the promises in the Bible some day and make a list of exactly what is promised that probably applies to me today. Here's a few off the top of my head.

1. "I am with you always." I'm sure this is true, but it's not very tangible, and it's definitely not testable.

2. "You will receive power." This is difficult. If we assume that we are still bound to the "great commission", we must also assume that we either have or may receive this "power". Both the context and the Greek word "dunamis" suggest that "power" means tongues and miracles and some kind of supernatural boldness. However, if we believe that we as present-day non-charismatic Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we must assume that "power" does not refer to anything tangible - that is, anything that we might normally call power. Quite a stretch, I think. Another thing: it's not just Acts that places this emphasis on power, the other version of the great commission (Mt 28:18-20) has a similar "power clause", and if you read Mark 16:9-20 as scripture, this version also hinges on the reception of power. So do the sendings out of the disciples in Mt 10/Mk 6/Lk 9, Mk 6 and Lk 10. (There are numerous other references to the vital role of miracle in evangelism that I could give you if you're interested.) You could argue that the calling of Saul in Acts 9 did not promise miraculous power, but it certainly demonstrated it, both in the voice from heaven and the curing of his blindness, and Paul himself did perform many miracles, both for their own sake and for evangelism. If you like searching your Bible, I challenge you to find any call to evangelism by Jesus that is not directly tied to miraculous power. Or find a conversion in Acts which is not explicitly linked to either a miraculous calling or a display of spiritual power. (By my count there are two.) If you can explain to me why I am still called to evangelize without miraculous power, I would be grateful. ("If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice–nor do the churches of God.") This is one of the great Jacobian conundrums.

3. "Ask and it shall be given to you." Uh-oh, this is another tough one. I think there are limitations on this. I think people have made excuses about why this doesn't work out in practice the way it looks in red ink. Right now I'm having a hard time caring. This is another frustration for another day.

4. "I will come back and take you to be with me." Wonderful. Seriously, this is cool. This is why it's worth it to be a Christian. But without in any way limiting the coolness of this promise, allow me to note that is is not testable until it actually happens.

There are probably more of these promises, but that's all I could think of quickly. What I'm trying to get at with all of that is that there really aren't any categorical, testable, claimable promises out there. There are promises that are vaguely comforting but totally non-specific and non-experiential (eg. #1). There are the ones that seem to have been broken, which some conclude must have expired without notice (#2). There are the ones that are seem to be real and exciting and significant but don't live up to our expectations, and to which we must add all kinds of provisoes to excuse (#3). And then of course there are the future promises, which will hopefully be fulfilled in spectacular fashion some day, but do little for day-to-day life (#4). There are no fleeces for us, there are no dares from God, there are no real and testable promises. If anything, the promises of God disillusion and confuse me, particularly those of the 2nd and 3rd category.

The tangible, supernatural expression of God is not to be had - at least, it is not to be dished out on request to people like me. The promises of God are expired, or yet to be fulfilled, or do not deliver what they seem to pledge. What's left? (Please note, I'm not angry about this. I have been in the past, but I'm not now. I'm not saying God is a jerk. I'm not saying I have it rough or it's not fair or God owes me something. I'm not whining, I'm not asking for your sympathy, I'm just saying that this is my life as I see it. Please bear this in mind.) God is silent towards me. You know this. I pray, God is silent. I read, God is silent. I fast, God is silent. This is a fact. You can say that he's speaking and I'm not hearing, but it's all the same. I've put forth my best effort and God has chosen not to respond in a way that I can perceive, therefore he is silent. God's promises are riddles. They are not testable, they are not bankable. God is silent.

Some Christians will tell you that anyone who doesn't believe in God is either deluding themselves or consciously denying what deep down they know is true, presumably so they can continue to live in sin. This is stupid. People who say this, I think, don't listen to non-Christians, they just preach at them. Well, I shouldn't say that. I haven't done a fair test on a representative sample of all those who reject Christ. What I should say is that in my experience, there is no one reason that people to either accept or reject Christ. In fact, there is no compelling reason that all people should believe in Christ. There are no easy answers or easy divisions or easy graphable data. (Well, there is one thing: the vast majority of Christians I talk to say that they are Christians because they feel like they need to be. They didn't like how they were before, or they're afraid of life or death, or they feel like they need to believe in God to be able to function. Not scientific reasons. Not supernatural experiences. Psychological needs. Draw whatever conclusions you like.) What I'm getting at here is that the world doesn't work the way we Christians would like it to. We'd like to have a world in which scientific evidence compelled us to believe the Christian God, a world in which all good and honest truth-seeking people eventually became Christians, and only the deliberately evil and perverse resisted. We try to convince ourselves we live in such a world, but we don't. I'm not saying Christianity is stupid, just that non-Christianity is not stupid. This is a tough thing for some people to accept, but from where I stand, there is no other option. It seems to me that God has carefully and meticulously created my world to appear Godless. He's wiped away all his fingerprints and spread a film of dust across the floor. (I do think intelligent design is the most logical explanation for the existence of this world, but daily life is a different story.) I see very little in the world today that suggests to me that God is active. I've come to believe this is part of God's plan - it could hardly have escaped his notice.

It's funny how really stupid things can affect me sometimes. I try to be a good cynic, but I'm just too emotional, and sometimes the stuff I sneer at breaks through and affects me. So I have a confession to make: the other day I watched part of a direct-to-video animated movie. It wasn't Disney (I'm not that depraved) but it was direct-to-video. It was called Joseph: King of Dreams, and it was done by the Prince of Egypt people. In my defense, it was a Saturday and I had an exam on Monday, so I was in procrastination mode. My diversion radar was searching desperately for a way to put off the inevitable studying. It found a movie. It wasn't very good, but somehow in spite of the mediocre script and the mediocre animation and the mediocre songs, one scene managed to resonate with me. It's the one where Joseph's brothers throw him in a pit, and then decide to sell him as a slave. Joseph is thunderstruck. The slave traders are dragging him away and he's pleading with his brothers, shouting "I'm your brother! I'm your brother!" It struck me that Joseph really got hosed here. And for some reason I saw this guy not as Perfect Joseph from the Bible, this glowing saint in a painting, the man of whom we have no record of sin. I saw him as just a normal guy who was shamed and betrayed and forced into slavery. It's really beyond imagination, that the people closest to him could come to hate hate him so much that they disowned and abused him and sold him to foreign slave-lords for a few petty coins. I was trying to think of a modern equivalent for this - something someone could do to me that would have that kind of impact. The closest I could come is if I were a young woman, and a trusted friend or relative took me away to another city and forced me to become a prostitute. This is powerful stuff. And it made me wonder what was going through Joseph's head as they dragged him to Egypt and sold him as a laborer, or as he was framed and thrown in prison for following God's commandments. He'd had some cool dreams once, but that was long ago. There's no record of God comforting or reassuring him at any time. And I can't say this for sure, but I'd bet that Joseph was pretty mad at God sometimes. I remember reading my picture bible as a child and seeing the picture of Joseph in the dungeon. Scruffy, dirty men brood in the corners, glaring at the hansom young Joseph who kneels saint-like and serene in the center of the cell, praying. I bet this isn't how it looked when Joseph was first thrown in prison. I bet he was very, very angry at God. But we know that at some point Joseph decided to trust God. In the animated movie he sings a corny song that says "You know better than I. You know the way. I've let go the need to know why. For you know better than I." Somehow that resonated with me.

But let me back up. At the beginning of this entry I talked about the possibility of "risking" hugely for God and having great faith that he will provide, and getting burned for it. I think this is very possible, in fact, I think this is the most likely result of trusting God with your physical needs. As I said, God has created this world to appear Godless. So what do I do? I think it would be wise in this world to just live my life and do whatever makes me feel godly. Develop a disciplined devotional life. Become good at writing and good at exhorting, so that I could create a really uplifting and inspirational blog thing that people will read and think was so cool and so honest, so real. I could do this, I think. Probably I could even fool myself, unconsciously writing the script of my life to bring me to some powerful climax of brokenness and faith. I could throw a veil of godliness over my heart and a veil of contentedness over my mind, and only God would know that it was all self-serving and self-deceiving, a prozac lie. Part of me wants this. Part of me wants to find a drug that will help me forget, an alcohol which will wash away the insatiable longing, soothing my mind and whispering that everything is fine now, I am content and fulfilled, and tomorrow does not exist. I hate my life. I cannot truly live, as I count living, and I cannot die until he calls me. In the mean time, what do I do? In an earlier post I spoke about my desire to find a clay that will dull the edge of my hunger. A patch for my God-shaped hole. This sounds scary and wrong, but what else can I do? If your father does not feed you, you must beg and scavenge, swallowing whatever slime or mould you can find to keep you breathing. This is the way of things in our world.

What I'm talking about is what I call survival spirituality. This is something nearly all of us do, I suspect. It's a process of masking and bandaging our disappointments and disillusionments, guarding ourselves against further hurts by risking nothing and covering up for God. We throw excusing clauses on our prayers - "If it be your will" type stuff. We say this not out of a genuine, tried and tested trust in God's judgment, but out of caution, out of a need to provide God with an out. Survival Spirituality is a Jenga game. We trust seldom and trust safely. We analyze the risk of being let down, we search for an easier way, we test the ground carefully - a wiggle, a jiggle. The trusting its self is done breathlessly. We cringe, anticipating a collapse at any time. We cover up for God the way a child covers up for a negligent father. We take on God's responsibilities, we make excuses, we cover our scars and hide our hunger. We thought we understood God once - we thought he had promised us good things, but we paid the price for our naivete. We shrug off this innocent blunder with an uneasy laugh, "Of course, we didn't know better. But what do you expect? This is the way life is in this world, this is how it's always been." If you press us we become defensive of God. "What are you saying? Who are you to tell God what to do? He died for you, he loves you, and he's coming back. He hasn't forgotten us, he just needed to leave us for a while, to let us grow up. We have to be able to face our disappointments and overcome our childish fantasies. You've got to come to God with a rational, grown up faith. You've got to be sensible and reverent. Anyway, he's given us so much. Isn't it a little ungrateful of us to ask for more?" We have excuses for all the confusing promises, we have explanations for the silence and the distance and the pain. "Yes, we're a bit hungry, but hunger can be a good thing. You've got to be hungry to want the bread of life. Some day, we'll be filled. But we live in a fallen world, and what did you expect..." This is how we survive.

I admit I've cast this in a very negative light. Perhaps I'm being selfish or manipulative. Maybe I just need to grow up. But I'm hungry. And honestly, I hate my life. I hate my emptiness and my tepidness. I hate it, I hate it. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. I want to know Christ. I want to know the power. I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings. Please, anyone, this is what I desire. I want Christ and power and suffering. Show me Jesus or give me hell.

(I write these posts over a period of several days. I need to tell you that the stuff above about "hunger", about hating my life and wanting to wash away my restless pain with some kind of spiritual drug seems strange to me now. Now, as I write this bracket, I am fairly content and fairly peaceable towards the silent God and my everyday, pallid world. I'm not saying that the longing and the emotion expressed above are lies, only that I do not feel this way all the time. Which is my true self - the contentedness or the restlessness? Which is better? I don't know. Jacob is a strange creature, I haven't yet figured him out.)

I'm always confused when people compare modern-day faith with the faith of Bible characters. To me, there is little similarity. When we talk about "having faith in God", we either mean believing he exists, or we mean... Something weird and nebulous that I don't understand. Something about how God will "always be there for you" or "never let you down" or something comparatively empty and enigmatic. Or sometimes we mean that we think God has "called" us to do something, and we have to have faith that he is in fact calling us, and that whatever happens, if we follow [what we believe to be] his "call", it will work out well. I don't see much in common between this faith and Biblical faith. Biblical faith (with the exception of a few people like Joseph) is of the kind where God saying to Moses "Yo, I'm God. See this burning bush? See my power? Here I'll teach you some tricks, and then I want you to go defy Pharaoh. Don't worry - I'm powerful, and I'm going to use you to bring him down." And then Moses has to have faith - not that God exists, not that God is powerful and active, not that God is calling him, but that God is telling him the truth. Biblical faith is Joshua being visited by an Angel who tells him to do something really stupid, and God will give them victory. All Joshua has to do is believe that God is telling him the truth. Biblical Faith is Abraham believing God's covenant, it's Gideon trusting God with his battle plan, it's prophet after prophet coming before evil kings and speaking the words given to them by God himself. Biblical faith is Peter - who by the way has just seen Jesus feed 5000 men, and who now sees Jesus walking on water, and who has Jesus' personal assurance that he won't sink - stepping out of the boat. Are you following this? Me trying to figure out whether I should give away all my money or become a vegetarian or continue to be a Christian has nothing in common with the faith of most Biblical characters.

But it does have something in common with the faith of Real Live Preacher. This is a snippet from his life story:

Turns out Christianity is an Eastern religion. The earliest Christians were Hebrews. Semites. People of the East. They did not know how to separate mind from body. They were holistic before holistic was cool.

In our world we have separated mind from body to our great loss. Here a man may betray his wife and neglect his children, but say he loves them "down inside."

Bullshit. There is no "down inside." Love is something you do, not something you feel.

Likewise, we think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God's existence think faith is impossible for them.

Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.

I learned that it doesn't matter in the least that I be convinced of God's existence. Whether or not God exists is none of my business, really. What do I know of existence? I don't even know how the VCR works.

What does matter is whether or not I am faithful. I think faithful is a hell of a good word. It still has some of its original shine. It still calls us to action.

So that's it. I like this idea of faith being faithfulness. I like that I don't have to sweat it when I wake up some mornings and the whole idea of God seems stupid. I like that my job is not to convice other people of God's existence, but to denonstrate my faithfulness to his teachings. Here's some more RLP. This is a conversation between him and his friend George, who is terminally ill:

One day George said, "I wish I could believe in God. I really do. I'd like to go to your church, and sing hymns, and be a part of something bigger than myself. I'm at the end of my life, and I don't think I've made a real difference in the world. My life hasn't really mattered to anyone. But, I just can't believe in God, so..."

You should never tell this preacher you don't believe in God.

"You don't believe in God? So what. Sometimes I don't either. The important question in life is not a question of belief. What's really important is whom you serve. I think it's serving God that makes life meaningful."

"You mean I could go to church, and sing, and do stuff, and all that, without believing in God?"

"Hell yes. I hope so, or else I better find another fuckin job."

"You don't believe in God?"

"Well, I do now, mostly. I still have my bad days. It's complicated. Belief comes later for some people, for people like you and me."

"What would I do? How would I get started?"

"I don't know, I guess just come to church and sing."

Understand that this preacher NEVER asks people to become Christians. If anything, I shoo people away. I consider Christianity to be a pretty stiff commitment, and I don't ever sugar coat it.

If someone is seeking a spiritual path and wants to journey with me, I'm fine with that. I'll shoulder my pack, help get his adjusted, and we'll move on down the road together. I don't really give a shit about making converts. That's not my business. I will walk with people though, if they want.

That's really all church is about anyway. We're a bunch of rag-tag pilgrims sharing the road and taking turns shielding each other from the wind. Sometimes we carry each other's packs for a spell. We share maps and provisions and friendship. We serve God by serving each other.

This makes sense to me. It doesn't make sense for God to insist that we always believe in him, or that we be able to make other people believe in him. It does make sense for him to say "This is what I want from you: act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." I can do that.

If this sounds weird to you, I've got another story - the story of Mother Teresa (found through the Preacher), which I think may be the modern equivalent of the Joseph story I was searching for above. The gist of it is that Jesus appeared to her in visions and called her away from her beloved life as a nun to service in the slums of Calcutta. However, the visions ceased abruptly when she arrived, and she began to feel an isolation from God which remained until her death. This is amazing to me. Brother Lawrence lived with chronic pain, but he felt a closeness with God throughout his life of service. Yet Mother Teresa, perhaps the most admired and venerated Christian of the last century, did her service in depression and darkness. I'm awestruck.

I'm thinking now that if Mother Teresa could do what she did for so long while feeling abandoned by God, maybe it's alright that I feel hungry. Maybe it's an honor that I am one of those who "do not see, yet believe". (Or perhaps more accurately: do not believe, yet are faithful.)

So that's what I'm thinking about faith.