Do you ever pray for patience? Me either. I quit that in junior high school. I learned that if you started praying for patience, you suddenly started getting your patience tested at every turn.
Have you ever railed at God? I mean seriously told God off? Kind of like "we are breaking up because I am sick of you letting me down." These conversations can happen silently with a lot of fist raising. Or loudly with a lot fist raising. There might or might not be crying involved. You might be so broken that you are on your knees and aren't able to raise anything, but you are silently letting God have it. You and God are done. Kaput. Calling it quits.
Every now and then I will have these sorts of conversations with people, and most folks admit to having a break with God. At some point, they reached a place in their lives and they gave God what-for, so to speak. I suppose you could call it a crisis of faith. I am always surprised when someone says that they have never been there. Unless they don't believe in God at all. But that is a whole different story. That always makes me think one of several things...
1) They are lying. They have totally been there, but they think it makes them look weak or like lesser Christians to have had such a conversation with God. If I think this is the case, I somehow like this person a little less after this conversation. This always makes me sad.
2) They are totally in denial. In fact, they might be still having this conversation with God even now. I feel compassion for this person. They need to let this out and feel it.
3) Uh oh. I don't want to be the one to tell this person that they somewhere in their future, when they least expect it, they are going to get sucker punched in their solar plexus. That will be followed up with an upper cut to their jaw. And before they can process that, someone is going kick them from behind, and they are going to hit the ground so hard that they won't be able to breathe.
You see, no one is exempt from the hits that life hands out. Life hits hard. And if you haven't been hit. It is just a matter of time. And that verse in Philippians about God not giving you more than you can handle (4:13) is really comforting when you're not the one lying on the floor unable to draw a breath. It is awesome when you are the one holding the Bible trying to comfort a friend. However, when you are the one who can't breathe or move, all you want to do is punch the person who is reading it to you. That is, if you could lift your hand off the ground. However, if all of your muscles have become rubbery, elastic, and you can't feel your extremities, so that isn't possible, it makes you pissed. And you don't want to hear about God. In fact, right now you are really pissed at God. And that is when the breaking up with God that I referred to earlier kicks in. When you are lying on the floor, mad as all get-out. For the record, there usually isn't a Bible-toting friend around quoting verse. You are alone. Alone and angry.
I've said it before, but I will say it again. This whole Big Idea thing was not my idea. God put this idea into my head and has been filling in all of the blanks on that paper. None of this has been my idea. Yeah, it has been coming out of my head. I am taking that to mean because God must think that I have the skills and tenacity to make it happen. So, while I was lying on the floor (metaphorically) railing at God yesterday I was angry on a whole bunch of levels. One of the biggest was that I didn't see it coming. This whole idea was not mine, so I had an expectation of it running smoothly since someone bigger than lil ol me was at the helm. I also was really looking forward to getting my life back.
After my meltdown yesterday I thought a lot about Job. Almost enough to get out my Bible and read the story again to get the details. But I think I remember it well enough for my purposes. Job lost everything at least once. His whole family. His property. Maybe a second family. Eventually, his faith was rewarded and he didn't lose everything in the end. The story is about having faith and pushing forward even when you lose everything. Over and over. I don't remember if it says that Job dropped to his knees and railed at God. He probably did. That is a very human reaction to a terrible situation. But, then he got back up and remained a man of faith.
Faith doesn't mean anything in good times. Anyone can have faith in anything in good times. Faith in yourself. Faith in God. Faith in whatever. So long as it is going well. Having faith in something, in anything, is having faith in bad times. So there really is no faith without a crisis of faith. You can't say that you have faith until you take that punch to the solar plexus and land facedown on the pavement. You can rail at God all you want. You can break up and call God names. That is fine. So long as you recognize that God wasn't the one that sucker punched you. That was life. Then you go back to being in it together to win it and pull yourself off the pavement. You can't just lie there forever.
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