I’m in no mood to journal: I feel disappointed in myself today for underaccomplishing, mostly because I didn’t make time to exercise today and haven’t managed to wheel back to get any post-launch work done on Frank’s website.
But Ethan and I had a stimulating conversation about how to live our lives following Jesus while we watched Sullivan and Everley take swim lessons and Éa and Anthem clamber around the bleachers. Unfortunately, it makes me want to get Carla to quit her jobs so we can more readily foster children.
For this reason we don’t lose heart. Even if our outer humanity is decaying, our inner humanity is being renewed day by day. This slight momentary trouble of ours is working to produce a weight of glory, passing and surpassing everything, lasting forever; for we don’t look at the things that can be seen, but at the things that can’t be seen. After all, the things you can see are here today and gone tomorrow; but the things you can’t see are everlasting (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, KNT).
We look at the things that can’t be seen. That’s a religious paradox strict empiricist might choke on. But besides being poetic, it’s true, and whether the objects of our gaze are real or not, our hope in them has real sustaining power.
It’s also leads to a thought we as believers ought to remember: We are, in the end, talking about Someone invisible. Why balk at the idea that some folks don’t believe?
As this first day of my sprint toward getting a minimum viable website up for Frank and PolyGreen America ends, I am reminded that hobbies are happiest when they are not only enjoyable, but also seen as a form of generosity. In the case of web-development-on-the-side-that-disturbs-my-schedule-equilibirum, the enjoyment is possible only when I view it as such.
So Lord, let me renew that vantage on this work—and all work, really.
If, when I’m old, you were to ask me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was I day I think—I hope—I turned a corner in my character. You see, since screening the finale of the second season of Gatiss & Moffatt’s Sherlock this past Saturday, entitled “The Reichenbach Fall” (and probably a good bit before then), I had been obsessing over the show: obsessing about its plot, obsessing about its characters, obsessing about its actors, and obsessing about its writers. I was obsessing about my decision to stop watching it because of my obsession.
I needed to be rescued from all this.
And it’s more than Sherlock: In recent months, I have spent far too much time and attention setting up operating systems, selecting an iPhone case, and other such minutiae. I prioritize trivialities. And it robs me of life (and steals from DiamondBack).
We have overcome perfectionism. We have overcome stoniness. We have overcome self-distraction at work. We have overcome religious doubt. (All of the above are still works in progress, but they are works well on their way with clear paths to completion.) Perhaps now we can take on obsessiveness and the resulting misprioritization.
Deliberation, yes: You do that about problems and decisions. Cogitation, yes: You do that about profundities. Obsession, no: You do that, by definition, with things you ought not to. And I know what it feels like.
If you’re going to obsess about anything, do it about giving yourself for the benefit of other people.
As much as I’d like to start posting about what is lost when we use transliterations like ‘baptism’ and ‘apostle’ instead translating them “immersion” and “emissary,” I am inspired to start thinking in terms of positive formulations of my faith, rather than critical ones. OK, Scott, we know what you don’t believe: What do you believe?
Clinging to a Man who is no longer perceptibly with us is not a sufficient ethic, as the very fact that we have the term “aberrational Christian or Bible-based groups” attests. It’s too loosy-goosey. People can make stuff up about what He is saying. Therefore, we must hermeneutically extract principles from His biographies.
I shall not be ashamed of saying God healed the people I read about or that God spoke to Carla about such-and-such. I may have to fall back on one of McHargue’s maxims, but still. It’s better than shying away from calling it God. And I need You, God. It used to be a luxury I was requesting; now it is a necessity. I need to experience You. I can point to my good life and say You gave them to me, but that’s not the same thing.
I wake up almost every morning these days with a shot of anxiety running through my middle. My inkling is that it stems from always doing and never resting. Is that it?
Carla says when she feels that way, she takes it as a prompt to pray.
There’s plenty of high-quality Christian music out there. Why not spin it more often? Listening to a few Jars and Crowder tracks this evening reminds me that I need not be shy.
“A wise enemy will attack you on two fronts: exploit your weaknesses, and undermine confidence in your strength. Don’t be surprised when there is much ‘push back’ against you from all quarters (natural and spiritual) when you set your mind to be authentically who you are in Christ and bless the world by expressing it. Our adversary and Christian religion will tolerate you listening to sermons and singing worship songs, etc. Set your sail to be authentically you in Christ, and war is on.”
I know what’s behind all my doubt-borne anxiety and obsessive, sinful trawling of the Internet in search of God (or not God): It’s a fear of being wrong. And a fear of uncertainty.
Rob Bell just officially loosened up my interpretation of Matthew 7:13-14. This passage isn’t discussing eternal life at all. It’s almost laughable that I used to think so!
Saw this testimony on Youtube. I thought it would be worth your time to watch it. You only need to watch the first 13 minutes of it.
me:
Thanks, Mom! I’ve queued it up for later watching.
I’m concluding, however, that being assiduous about answering my questions and shoring up my faith isn’t healthy. There appears to be a positive correlation between the sedulity with which I approach my questions and the likelihood that my reading and watching will deepen my doubts.
In other words, I’m finding it much healthier and more likely to lead to restored strength of belief to take this whole thing slowly.
But by all means, if you come across other resources you think would be helpful, I’m very good at queueing things up for reading or watching and then following through with reading or watching them later. I’ve just about finished Surprised by Joy, which you graciously sent me last month. Thanks again for that.
Mom:
Sedulity - I had to look that one up. Great word. I think I understand what you’re saying.
I would have sent you the video link regardless, as it’s such a great testimony! (as well as 2 others, but I didn’t want to send too much). Yet there’s something about a radically changed life that’s hard to argue with.
There will always be unanswered questions. For most, I think it gets down to ‘you see what you believe’ - you can choose to see God in everything and you will or you can choose not to see Him, and you won’t and you’ll find ‘proof’ that he doesn’t exist. I can see God in a snowflake or an orchid or a colorful sunset. I can hear Him in the ocean, the breeze, or the birds singing. I can sense His pleasure and joy when I do something nice for someone, or just hang out with Him. It’s fun; it’s wonderful; it’s full of hope and peace. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
My relationship with God is based on my love for Him and His awesome love for me in soooo many ways. I haven’t heard you mention anything about loving God? Just wondering where you’re at with that?
Was ‘Surprised by Joy’ a good book? I’m praying that He surprises you. :)
Much love and can’t wait to see you all soon!
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world… " Psalm 19:1-4a
me:
I’m 3/4 of the way through Surprised by Joy and Lewis has yet take his turn toward theism. So the book has been occasionally interesting, but mostly a semi-dry memoir of his childhood and youth. Still, a worthwhile read that’s much less heady than some stuff he wrote.
I’m praying He surprise me, too.
Psalms are very helpful, although the psalm you quote has at times been a source of anxiety, as sometimes in the past several months when I look at the skies, I don’t hear them declaring His glory, and that has worried me.
I do love God. That’s why the prospect of losing Him to has been so anxiety-ridden.
But since part of loving Him is pleasing Him, and the writer of Hebrews says that it’s impossible to please Him without faith (v. 6), and that to come to Him I must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him, I do feel like I’m making a turn toward a firm decision to believe and stay put, as in a marriage. Even if my seeking of Him isn’t leading to the promised reward in the timing or way I prefer, it is still leading there. If I’ll only hold on.
Like I said, keep sending me whatever you want to send me. (You’re right that it’s hard to argue about a radically changed life.) Just know that I won’t necessarily read, watch, or listen to it right away.
Father, I want to reorient the things I do, the things on my list, toward this: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). And toward this one, too: “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God, I want You to be like this dragon: Insistent on being seen and appreciated. (This particular leaf from the book I show only because I think it’s one of the funniest spreads I’ve ever read.)
Today I am grateful for the following realization, which I’ve had before but crystallizes more today: The way to deal with doubt and its related anxiety is not to trawl the Internet looking for evidence of God. That only feeds the anxiety and continues to build my faith in Him entirely on other people’s experiences, arguments, and opinions. My usual intense setting aside of all other things, including work, to set right a system awry is not the way to go here.
A better metaphor for my doubt: It is as if someone has presented a plausible case against Carla being nothing more than a sophisticated simulation or AI.
I have decided how to deal with my existential doubt about God: Consider myself married to You.
I have several marriages. In order of strength of commitment, I admit that I am married first to Carla and the kids. But right after that comes You. But despite that order, which is the inverse of how I would have ordered it at this time last year, I am privileged to live in a pluralistic culture where it is hard to imagine those two marriages ever coming into conflict. So we might almost consider these marriages functionally tied in importance, if not in their priority.
After that—and this will help with my concentration problems at work—I am also married to my colleagues at DiamondBack. Then to Houserville. These two marriages are more dissoluble without fault.
But the first two, they are not dissoluble. I tell You, O Lord, the same thing I told Carla and she me: I will never divorce You unless someone can prove Your non-existence. Folks may be able to make strong inferential, probabilistic cases that You don’t exist, but they can never disprove it. And there remains enough evidence out there for a reasonable person to make the inferential, probabilistic conclusion that You are.
Can Your existence be deduced or induced with certainty? No. Even the least explainable miracles, such as Vonna Wala’s healing, can be dismissed by appealing to the possibility of future, non-theistic explanations, and even though that may be unwarranted extrapolation and a fallacious argument to the future, such dismissal can carry weight and eliminate theistic certainty. Short of an intense encounter with the metaphysical, which I hope for but don’t count on, I can never return to thinking Your existence is certain.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t live as though it is certain. And that is my plan.
“Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40). You, O Lord, have been asleep in the boat of my life as it gets “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14). But in this text, at least, You tell me I have nothing to worry about. “I’m in the boat, aren’t I?”
Thanks for your quick reply. My message is not so urgent that you need feel any friendly responsibility to reply tonight, despite the gravity of the subject, for I’ve already talked this over with more than a handful of friends, all of whom have been supportive. I write you specifically because I understand you to be one of the leftmost Christians, theologically speaking, in my own social sphere.
How am I asking you to reply to [my doubt]? I don’t know, exactly. But I’d be happy if you answered any of the below questions:
Have you doubted?
What specifically have you doubted?
What have you done with your doubt? How do you handle it?
Do you believe that Jesus is alive?
Do you have any ideas about why God seems so hidden?
Why do you pray?
How do you pray?
What sorts of things do you thank God for?
How are you handling child-rearing with an eye toward them believing?
Like I said, please take your time in replying. And/or let’s set a phone date. Your pick.
friend:
I’ll do my best not to ramble too much here as it’s taken me so long to write and I’m sure you are busy too! I’ve had this conversation with many of my friends who grew up at Life Center or similar places.
Have you doubted?
Your story is not dissimilar to mine. To be brief, my doubts (primarily about the congruence of OT God with Jesus, Biblical authority, and then a near complete unravel) came to head in the midst of serving at the worship arts pastor for a church plant about five years ago. These issues long brewed beneath the surface but they were, unintentionally, pushed through by the lead pastor (a good friend) who was making an issue of this ad: electexiles.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/u… and what he thought was purposterous about it. Anyway, I pulled out for a while dealing with it all landing as a follower of Jesus where my previous issues were largely moot. I can unpack that more if you want, but that’s up to you. So, yes, I’ve doubted and still doubt but my “belief” is a different now where doubt is more of a tool than a disability.
What specifically have you doubted? What have you done with your doubt? How do you handle it?
The two things I mentioned earlier were the frays to start the unravelling. From there I’ve doubted everything about everything, including the potential waste of my most of my life, time, and even money holding to these beliefs.
Maybe I should say the one thing I’ve never really tossed out the window: following Jesus' way is unequivocally the best possible way to live. Even if nothing else is true in the Bible and even if Jesus was a completely fictional character (we assume in this scenario that there probably isn’t a God) Jesus is still the way I would choose and the world could choose to make all of life so much better.
It was from that idea that I was able to rebuild my “faith”/ “belief” / center. I made a core that worked under any circumstance that I could understand given years of thinking about it. Is that the best way? The most powerful spirit filled way to go? I imagine many would say not, but given the options it is the one I knew would be least likely to unravel. (I am realizing some of this as a write it so bear with me.) There is not room in this center for people to tell me made up platitudes to make me feel good in a cyclical pattern of warm Abba Father love thinking while sidestepping issues. As you can guess, I don’t think most church literature and their approach takes doubt seriously in that it actually wants to answer the questions with answers. Instead they take stuff that can be fine and use it to redirect which in people like me (and you I think) only breeds further doubt down the road and even distrust. THIS has to end…. Anyway.
As I see the next question, let me say that I have a few different types of belief now. However, I am not talking about the “this is true for me” hardcore simplistic postmodernist thought. All of these types of belief, for me, leave the door open to other voices.
Belief that something is true, but not necessarily at the expense of some other truth.
Belief that something is certainly untrue, but without necessarily a true substitution to put in its place.
Belief that is more like a leaning but enough to work with.
Belief that something probably can’t be known.
I probably have more types, but I have trouble articulating without present examples.
Do you believe that Jesus is alive?
Yes I do, believe that. Though I to be fair I should ask two questions back. (1) What do YOU mean by “alive”? (2) How important is this answer to your own beliefs and are other types of “alive” weighted differently?
Ok, I’m going to leave it there for the moment so I have SOMETHING to send you and plus I asked a few questions there. Ask any others and I PROMISE to write again within 8 days of receiving your next email. If I don’t read back I’ll send what I’ve completed soon.
me: Thank you. Especially for the care and time you took, especially for someone like me whom you barely know. I agree with so much of what you’ve written. It sounds like we have indeed traveled down similar rivers, although for me, dissatisfactory church experiences were not at the headwaters (though I’ve swum through those, too); I’m never surprised to hear that even well-meaning people fall short of what is good and true. For me, the doubt has been metaphysical from the get-go.
Perhaps if we communicate in bullet points, albeit admittedly disorganized ones, it’ll help us correspond without spending inordinate time on it:
- You call doubt a “tool.” To what use?
- I can get fully behind your reductionist take on Jesus-following as the best way regardless of the reality of His existence. I certainly hope that my doubt leads to my faith comprising more action. But it seems to me that so much of what Jesus preached was about putting faith in Him, not just His way.
- I’ve found Mike McHargue’s Doubt Series helpful, taking his “AT LEAST…EVEN IF…” axioms as Gungor lists them about halfway down this blog post as my irreducible kernel of faith-practice, a “core” like the one you made. Perhaps you could add those axioms to the resources you use, too?
- One thing I’ve found helpful are a handful of occurrences that defy the possibility of (even eventual) naturalistic explanation, like this two-part healing story from a new and very helpful Internet acquaintance of mine, or like the time a close, anglophone-only American friend of mine spoke Mandarin for a half-hour with a Chinese national. (I’m still investigating the latter, although it is multiply attested.) At the same time, investigating other miracles has fed the doubt because it seems likely to me that much of what passes for miracles is mere coincidence or hypnotism at work.
- I agree 100% that church needs to be a safe, fruitful place to express and process doubt. I, for one, have tried to be very open about
- How do you handle spurts of doubt now?
- By “alive” I mean that His consciousness actually exists as its own independent agent in the cosmos. Whether that consciousness is in a physical body doesn’t matter to me. But it is substantially different to say He is alive in a metonymical way, as in, saying He is alive to mean merely that His teachings and ethos have survived in His people.
- The second half of my questions are still salient to me:
- Do you have any ideas about why God seems so (committed to being) hidden?
- Why do you pray?
- How do you pray?
- What sorts of things do you thank God for?
- How are you handling child-rearing with an eye toward them believing?
- I’m very eager to hear your Steve Schallert album in its entirety.
If I may say it to a virtual stranger: Much love. And happy, faithful Christmas to you.
