Park - Mad About God

I don't have it all figured out yet. That's okay.

Well I'm learning to be okay with it. And that's okay, too.

Like many others, I'm scared of the words, "I don't know." If you're a Christian, this is especially vilified in the church. To say, "I don't know" is to admit a weakness in the Bible or to lack confidence in our faith. It's to say, "I brought lighter fluid for my stake-burning." We're afraid to leave some things to mystery because we presume that Christianity must account for every blip and bump in reality. This is most true for tragedy. When life gets hard, the Christian's first reaction is to connect the dots between suffering and faith, and so we have flow charts and flowery prose for why this had to happen.

I understand the urge. I hate not knowing. I want to know that my pain isn't going to waste, that God or the universe or this chain of events is somehow leading to a greater good.

But I don't know that.

I don't know that every tunnel has a light at the end. In fact, trying to fix a diagram on my pain has led to even more pain. My ego-grip on control over-reaches for an answer, but my fingers constantly slip off the edge of climbing out of the dark. I end up confused about my confusion. I end up interrogating my questions.

The church doesn't deal well with pain. We're taught a God of blessing and promise and reward, and when He doesn't deliver, we can only assume He's abandoned us. Or worse, we attempt to retcon and fan-wank God by filling in for Him. We're told it's "for your growth" and "you're a vehicle for God's glory." This could be true, but it feels like a retrospective cover-up, a hindsight bias. Guys like me who preach on Sundays want to polish our pain with pretty words, because we squirm at the thought of good people losing to evil.

I've done this, too. I've forced one-liners onto my heartache. I've preached a shrink-wrapped theology to the church. I was afraid to say that the tension doesn't always resolve at the end of the thirty minute sitcom.

Yet that's life . Plot-holes run amok and plot threads dangle everywhere. We live within an ambiguous, open-ended ending all the time.

I awakened to the slowly growing horror that it seems God does not always resolve.

Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. But you've felt it, too. The preacher talks about asking forgiveness from God, but some days, it felt like God owed you the apology.

We've all been mad at something God has done or didn't do but it's also possible that our ideas about God were driven mad, too. The modern church's prescription for pain didn't work in the mushroom cloud. When you're hurting and the church keeps telling you to read more Bible and pray harder and "just believe," then of course, we'd all go a little mad.

Maybe we were never taught how to get mad with God. Maybe that's why we all went mad about Him.

You could've rejected a version of God that I would reject, too.

Several years ago, a few close friends of mine had betrayed me and I went through a severe depression and anxiety. I ended up taking a two-month sabbatical from ministry. Every time I thought about those who had turned against me, my blood went backwards, but on the surface, I played it cool. I would say the regular Jesus-type things. "God is refining me. This is for my good. I love them anyway." I talked with another friend during my break, and I kept saying things like, "It hurts, but praise God. It stinks, but I trust Him. I'm fine, God's got this." I would start to get mad but then I'd pull back, like dancing at the edge of a cliff. I knew I was stuffing down words, and my friend knew, too.

My friend finally shook his head. "Just stop."

"What do you mean?"

He said five simple words.

"Just say what you feel."

I objected. "Oh, I am. I know God will carry me. It's okay." I almost hissed this out.

My friend said again, "Say what you feel, man. It's me. You don't have to fake it with me."

I opened my mouth to say what a pastor should say: every dime-store Christianese clich that would look great on Instagram with a selfie. My friend stopped me once more. He said again, "Say what you feel. Just say what you feel. It's me. Don't fake it."

It was our Good Will Hunting moment.

I let loose. I let rip a stream of horrible, vulgar, scorching language in a single, sour breath. I wept. I made ugly cry-face. I pounded my fists. My lip even quivered.