From Desperation to Gratitude

In the search for intimate connection with God, I have come to realize how much I struggle (at times even hate) the idea of a “personal” God. For many years, my dislike centered on the idea of a personal and all-powerful God. I suppose I am like many who struggle with the idea of a personal and loving God allowing horrific and unfathomable things to happen to seemingly innocent people. While I contend that many bring on much of their own pain through destructive choices, I cannot say the same for children. I had a client, a not-quite teenage boy, who encountered abuse beyond description, and then once finally removed from his biological parents, was no longer able to feel safe enough to be loved. At a young age, he was already committing criminal acts and it was a matter of time before he was arrested only to enter into another system where love is sparse and perpetration commonplace. Where was this personal God during the innocent months of his infancy and toddlerhood? And then the question, due to his early circumstances rendering him unable to experience love, can we blame him for hating God, society, parents, and all humankind? I have believed for some time that as humans, we have the capacity to nurture or destroy, the choice is ours. To not have this freedom would mean we are reduced to God’s puppets in the grand theatre of life on earth. While I can swallow this pill – we are products of our choices, it is no less easy to witness the tragic destruction of our choices.

Thinking of the consequences of abuse, poverty, greed, generational patterns of substance abuse . . . they are real and valid reasons to question the validity of a personal God. They stir up a righteous anger and a passion in me to want to make the world a better place, even it is just one life I have the honor of touching. But this righteous anger also serves as a distraction to my own “hatred” toward a personal God. I can talk about my own inability to trust or to truly believe I am lovable and this is why I struggle to connect with a personal God. I can even justify this with psychobabble diagnosis– I am in a mode of self-protection . . . yadda yadda ya. But if I look for a spiritual diagnosis, I contend it is the sinful thought of Pride.

To acknowledge a personal and intimate Creator God means admitting I need something. To need something is to further admit a state of dependency and lack of self-sufficiency. I was reading this morning in Matthew about the hemorrhaging woman who had enough faith to reach out, touch the tassels of Christ’s robe, and trust that her years of shame would be healed. Women who bled were not permitted into the temple because they were declared unclean. So for thirteen years, she was “unfit” to enter the temple, or sacred space symbolizing God’s presence. I tried to imagine myself as that woman and wondered what I would do. Part of me wonders, would I be sitting in bitterness stewing over the legalistic laws that kept me away from worship? Maybe. I really think I would be looking for ways to “fix” it myself, perhaps hoping for a huge stash of tampons to hide the bleeding. I cannot picture myself in a place of desperate faith, reaching out with all that is within me, hoping against hope I would indeed find the healing I needed.

Actually, I can picture that. It happened nine years ago while living in Vietnam. After nine months of living in a third world country I got pretty desperate. That summer, things starting breaking down. An international family returned, and despite never meeting me, started spreading harsh lies about me. I witnessed international children being groped by Vietnamese nationals while their missionary parents stated, “it is cultural.” I experienced the suffocation of poverty – children sold as prostitutes and propositioning me on the street; beggars emaciated (some deformed from Agent Orange used by American troops in the Vietnam War); people sleeping on dirt floors . . . and I was left feeling helpless and hopeless. I was on a self-destructive downward spiral quickly heading to the end of my rope. One particular night, I remember in vivid detail. I curled up on my bed in the fetal position wanting the world to go away. The only thing I could do was utter the name “Jesus” over and over. I made it through that night, and the weeks and months until I came back to the States. The desperation I felt scared the hell out of me. While I believe I was granted intimate grace that night, an angry root soon took over. I swore to myself I would not get that desperate again.

Looking back now, almost ten years later, I recognize something significant happened in Vietnam. I was granted peace and rather than allowing that seed to find root and grow, in my pride I cut it down. A part of me has feared that to be desperate for God, I must enter back to a state of emotional insanity. As I tell my three-year-old, that is a silly fear. I think the better response would be gratitude. Grateful for the kiss of grace received that night, and grateful that it is available every night if I would just simply push my pride aside enough to notice it.