This week, Duncan and I started an art project (which we will fully document and blog about in the near future). For this project we needed glue to bind glass and other objects to wood. The day before we started this project was a hard day for me. It was one of those days where my emotions boiled over, everything seemed to have fallen apart and I could not imagine anything that could hold me together. It was one of those days when my body ached from holding stress and tension in every muscle, when a headache formed from dehydration caused by endless tears and bottomless cups of coffee. While holding the bottle of glue in the hardware store I thought that I could really use some glue in my life. I could really use some glue to put back together the pieces of my shattered identity, my broken heart and my God. Experience has broken these things down and all I need is some glue. I feel like Humpty Dumpty, irreparably damaged after a fall and abandoned. Like a cracked raw egg, my contents have been spilled, and are exposed without a shell. I can’t pick myself up. I am wondering where God is and what role he plays in brokenness and in healing because he and I seem to have different expectations.
I thought being in covenant with God looked something like this:
But as it turns out, it is more like this:
Theology through pop music. Perfect.
ReplyDeleteI think the reality lies somewhere between intimate romantic love and abandonment. And that it has its "ups" and "downs". And I think scripture, when taken as a whole, supports that view.
ReplyDeleteAbraham walks with God, bargains with him and receives his promises. But he also finds the promise so long abandoned that he loses hope. David has a very intimate relationship with God, but also regularly cries to God feeling abandoned. Ecclesiastes is pretty bleak. Acts is a rush.
I often find the parent/child relationship a helpful picture of my circumstances. Scripture cites people as only a little lower than angels. On the other hand God is still infinitely greater, wiser and beyond our understanding. So; it is *true* that parents love their children. Yet, from the childs point of view, they also often (for good reasons) don't meet the childs expectations.
(Now, I realize that parents are also imperfect people and do things for all kinds of selfish reasons and don't always love their children unconditionally the way they should. However, I find the picture close enough to help my understanding. So I'll proceed by assuming a close enough approximation to a good parent; much as the physicist approaches his subject assuming perfect spheres and frictionless planes.)
Back to parents. Why is it that parents often don't meet their child's expectations? Because, in short, they have a wider understanding, and have an agenda. Their agenda is to raise the child to maturity, and they have the understanding as to what is required to accomplish that.
Yes, God (desparately) wants a relationship with us. But I think one of the underlying messages in scripture is that God has an agenda.
I'm probably not raising anything here that you don't know, or haven't thought about. I don't in any way mean to minimize or trivialize your current trials or imply they are "childish". I hear that they are real and they are large, if not overwhelming.
I intend, though, to offer hope. Or at least the inkling of a possibility of hope.
Thank you. To know that you have been able to hold onto hope is encouraging.
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