(Job 3:1)
Perhaps you're mourning the death of a dream--sighing with Job, "Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?" (Job 3:11).
It's okay to feel that. We Christians are inclined to play down the nature and intensity of our emotions, stuff our feelings and carry ourselves heroically, living in pain behind a facade of poise. But that's Stoicism--a dehumanizing pagan ethic--not Christianity. There's no virtue in the stiff upper lip.
Furthermore, stoicism can be the means by which we cloak a bitter, resentful spirit and an altogether unsubmissive heart.
No, like Job we can pour out our passion--bring our hot and heavy complaints to God. (Complaint is nearer to God than indifference.) But passion is not the final resort. Our agitation must lead us to look deeper inside to see the realm from which it comes.
Our feelings lay bare our inmost desires. The way we respond emotionally when God and circumstances don't match our expectations reveals the condition of our hearts.
We exist in a frustrating world: "The creation was subjected to frustration by the will of the One who subjected it,in hope thatthe creation itself will be liberated from its bondage."
The pain we experience makes it plain we're not home yet. Once we realize that dark emotions are really the expression of our desire to have what we can never have this side of heaven, then we can get on with It is part of God's plan for us to struggle. Either we allow pain's emotional fallout to push us toward God or we choose to become more self-sufficient. Denying our emotions is a way of fleeing from God. God. Christ experienced the whole range of human emotions, but He did not sin in the process. His strongest desire, even when in agony, was to surrender Himself totally to His Father. We are drawn by our feelings to that same point of giving in to God. Going through this wrestling match with God is not an indication of spiritual weakness, but of the intensity of our desire for wholeness. We have a God who lets us be angry at Him and accepts our emotional pain as His own.
The reason for most of our anguish, it seems to me, is that we've set our hearts on the here and now--this temporary world--and we've lost sight of that realm that is timeless. Deprived in the present we've decided there's nothing left for which to live. But that's a serious error. There's more to life than this.
The purpose of life is not to be happy, though there are plenty of serendipities and happy surprises along the way. No, everything in life works together to move us toward intimacy with God and to make us more like him. That's what life is all about.
But life's lesson can only learned by those who are "trained" by it (Hebrews 12:11). We must let it do its work: we must know that we are in these straits by God's appointment and we must humble ourselves under his mighty hand. We must seek to manifest the specific grace for which this trial calls. We must accept our suffering as the means by which we are drawn into the heart of God.
Nearer, my God to Thee! Nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be: Nearer, my God to Thee!
Nearer to Thee! Nearer to Thee!--Lowell Mason
DR
7/8/96
See also Iron in Our Souls