This has been true of friends, people I've worked with, people I've had Christian fellowship with over the years. I understand that this world is not a happy place, not a milieu in which people tend to make very close friendships. The divorce statistics pay adequate witness to that. But I have found it increasingly difficult not to take it all very personally, especially as the years go by and the same thing happens again and again. Therefore, the thought has occurred to me that perhaps I'm not such a nice person after all. I say "after all" because I always thought that I was rather all right, as far as men went. I believed I was more sensitive than the average male, since most of the friends I have had were female, and seemed to find me easy to talk to and be with. I also thought so because I couldn't help noticing that most men I knew were insensitive, immature and profoundly uninteresting. (This may explain my failure to make a serious friendship with a man since leaving school!).
So, as I say, I have begun to realise that I am not such a nice person after all. In many ways, this is not a shock. After all, I have lived with myself for more than forty years now, and there is not much left about me that is unknown (this is not quite true, as I will later show). For a long time, I have been fond of saying, to those who listened, that I always believed deep down that I was a fraud and that people would eventually find me out. Of course, this was meant to be a joke, something funny to say when people complimented me on being good at something. How shocking to discover that it was true! All these years, as Oscar Wilde's Ernest also found to his shock, I was telling nothing but the truth, when I thought I was being clever. The thing is: what do you do when you find out that you're not really as good a person as you imagined yourself to be?
This is where being a Christian is vital. "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free", that's what Jesus said, and it is therefore true. Let me try to break this down a bit: Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. In other words, we are remarkably good at fooling ourselves. We do things and say things, all the time imagining that our motives are good and honest. How can we know that's true? We can't usually: the hypocrite is usually quite sincere in thinking himself better than others, or free of certain flaws and sins. Our eyes have been blinded and we cannot see the truth. So we go on from year to year, blithely unaware of how deep runs our sin, our pride, our self-centredness. Sometimes we get to a point where it is impossible to deny that we have sinned, but that can be dealt with superficially. We see our sin as being somehow out of character for us, an unusual slip from our normally high standards. Either that, or we decide it was not really sinful compared to what everybody else was doing. In this world, it is becoming increasingly common for people to blame everyone but themselves for the wrong things they do. My problem was caused by my parents not loving me, my teachers not appreciating me, my friends and colleagues not understanding me, etc. I was part of this same cycle of blindness and distortion when it came to seeing myself as I really am. And I was happy to go on that way.
But, for the Christian, there is a way out of that cycle of blindness. The Light of the World can come and shine in your eyes, revealing things about you that you'd rather not have seen. This is not inevitable, there is no guarantee that this revelation will happen. It takes two oddly contradictory things for it to come about. First of all, we have be genuinely blind to our failure. If we are aware of sin and do nothing to deal with it, we are ineligible for God's grace. But it is when we are blind to the real nature of our problem that God can begin to work. This brings us to the second requirement: we have to ask God to do the work in us. Now this raises a question: if we are unaware that we need this work done, why would we ask God to do it in us? There are two possible reasons: firstly, we ask God to have his way in us in the naive belief that there is not really very much for him to change, so it is a safe thing to ask for. The second possibility is that we realise that the Word of God tells us we are sinners in need of transformation, that we need to be conformed to his image, and that becomes the desire of our hearts. Therefore we ask that the Lord do this work in us, not really understanding what it entails in hard reality. And that's where it all starts.
Then one day, like me, you wake up to the fact that your life is a mess, that it seems like no-one really cares about you. It may be that your career seems to be going nowhere, or worse, that it is going rapidly downhill. Nothing you try seems to work out the way you planned, and people you deal with prove to be dishonest, petty and insensitive. You come to the frightening realisation that you don't particularly care for them either: the fact that the world is going to hell doesn't honestly bother you too much. In fact, you can easily see why they deserve such a destiny. The world depresses you, people generally disgust you, and nothing in this world holds much appeal. It all seems so shallow, pointless and temporary. What's worse, you realise that you are part of the whole mess, and you can easily understand why not even God could possibly love someone as dead and cold as you.
Of course, there have been other times when I felt cold and indifferent to others; but at those times I had always tried harder to pray, to treat people properly, to "be a Christian". But this time, I just don't have the energy to try anymore. The Bible seems closed to me, and reading about other Christians only depresses me. They describe a life that I really want, with all my heart, but can't seem to have right now. I'm left to ask: is it all just a lie, or is it just not for me? But I know better. People like A.W. Tozer really have known the Divine Conquest. C.S. Lewis really was surprised by Joy (in more ways than one). And no-one can read Roy Hessian and remain unmoved by the sheer reality of what he has found. If I am honest with myself (something I am not really in the mood for these days), I must admit that I, too, have known something of what they report. No, its not a lie: as Francis Schaeffer said: "He is there, and he is not silent".
But that leaves me with the other possibility, ie., that God isn't interested in letting me know him as I would like, that there is nothing he particularly has in mind for me to do or be. That I can be just left on the shelf here until I die. That thought distresses me more than I can say. There is even worse to come: this is exactly where God wants me to be. After all, I know that I gave myself entirely into his hands, and gave him the freedom to do with me what he wanted. Could this be what he wanted for me? I look at myself in the cold light of day, and I cannot blame God for such an attitude. I am a miserable specimen of Christian, and there are so many things I know I could have done to be better, but I just never could overcome myself. My laziness, pride, and my amazing ability to try and have it both ways, have crippled me in my spiritual walk. I confess this freely. Still, one last gasp of self-pity prompts me to whisper: "But I tried!".
That, of course, leads to a perverse kind of self-righteous anger. How can God love me and treat me like this? Maybe he doesn't really love me after all? I mean, if you give yourself over to the Lord, sincerely, if a little naively, is this where you should expect to end up: cold, dead, disillusioned and disinterested? Once again, I find myself declaring, now more angrily: "BUT I TRIED!". This time, it strikes me that there is something wrong with that last statement: "tried"? What do I mean, I tried? Well, whenever I got angry, I tried to control it, because Christians aren't meant to be angry. Whenever I got doubtful, I tried to push the doubts away, because Christians are meant to have faith always. Whenever I was hurt or disappointed, I tried to put on a good front and not let anyone know how I felt, not even me, because Christians are supposed to be joyful in all things. You see? I tried. But now, I just can't try anymore. I'm tired, hurt, angry, disillusioned, doubtful, disappointed, and I have no energy left to deal with it.
So I went to God and poured out my anger - delicately, of course, because he is God, after all. "Lord, I don't understand what you're doing to me. I've given you my life and I've tried to walk by the light you've given me. And it hasn't been easy, either. Even other Christians think I'm a fanatic because I believe the Bible is for today. You know my heart, and how honestly I have wanted to serve you and love you. But I have landed up here in this state of utter misery. I feel lonely, abandoned and unwanted. That's the simple truth. Why? What's more, I know you have brought all this about, because nothing happens without your knowledge. I hoped for opportunities to tell people about you, to grow myself in grace and maturity. Instead I'm here feeling defeated. I just don't understand."
Do you know one of the things that can be a little annoying about God? He's always right - always! Just when you think you've got a justified complaint to make against him, he says something, just a verse or two, and the ground is cut from underneath you. I believe Job had a similar experience. In my case, he reminded me of some of my favourite Scriptures:
You hem me in, behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me... [Psalm 139]
I can understand that feeling. Who have I in heaven but you, O Lord? Where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life. I read Isaiah 49 and heard my own words:
But I said, "I have laboured to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing." [verse 4]
Then comes God's reply in verses 15 and 16:
"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands..."
And I think of Calvary.
What can I do? The Word of God says over and over again that God loves me. It says that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called. Do I love him? Yes, I know I do, by his grace. That is why this is hurting so much. Only those you love can get through to you this way. Am I called? Of course. The Word of God is clear about that: all over the New Testament the Saints are referred to as being called, and I'm one of them. So where does that leave me? God loves me. All things work to the good for me. If God has brought me to this point, it is because he loves me, and knows that this is the best place for me to be right now. But why?
Here comes Scripture again!
"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
That's very true, Lord, but in this case the trouble is not from the world, its from you! You brought me here, not the world.
"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons."
Discipline? Am I being punished, then? Is it because I haven't been praying enough, or reading Scripture enough, or what? Then I realise: discipline, disciple...training! Discipline is not punishment at all, its training. But, Lord, this training of your's, if that's what it is, is not at all pleasant. I imagined training, growing into maturity, would be a more enlightening, instructive, profound kind of thing, not painful like this is.
"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it".
I read 1 Peter and he says the same thing to me: if I'm to have the desire of my heart and know God more intimately, it requires experiencing grief in life. Its not so much the events I go through that bother me, its thinking that God doesn't care that hurts. "Now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine".
"Genuine"? Genuine to who? Well, the Lord already knows all about me, so I suppose I am the one who needs to have my faith proved genuine. In other words, I need to know the true state of affairs concerning my faith, my heart and my life. Which is, when I think about it, exactly what I have been learning - the awful truth about myself. So here I am: feeling unloved, disillusioned with myself and my Christian life. I imagine I could be left on the shelf by the Lord for the rest of my days, never seeing revival, miracles, fulfilment, or whatever. The Lord's words in Jeremiah haunt me: "why should I forgive you?" I have no good reason why he should: if I were him I don't think I would be considered worthy of forgiveness. But then the Word of God tells me I am loved; that the very fact that he showing me the truth about my indifference and coldness is a sign that he is treating me as a son. I can see so clearly that there is absolutely nothing in this world that is worth anything outside of Jesus, and that, in the words of Ecclesiastes:
"Meaningless! Meaningless!", says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!..I have seen all things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind". [Eccles. 1.2, 14]
I thought I was depressed! Scripture simply agrees with my dawning understanding: there is nothing worthwhile to be found among the things man has lusted after. Only God is worthy of my time and energies. But there's more. I realise, seeing myself as I really am in all my unconcern for others and my isolation and indifference, that I have no claim on God for anything. I don't deserve anything from him. I have earned absolutely nothing from him. I have tried, to the extent I was willing, to live according to his ways, but I have failed utterly. Anything I receive from him is a gift, unmerited and unlooked for. (I know, this is not news, but it is more of a reality than it has ever been before).
I am left with some hard facts. As a Christian, I am a sorry excuse. As a man, I am vain, arrogant, indifferent to others and unwilling to put myself out in any way that inconveniences me.
But I come face to face with the fact of God. He is there, and he must be acknowledged. No matter how I feel, or what I think, I must face the question: will I bow in worship, or stand in rebellion? If I am to bow, it must be on his terms, with no conditions, no expectations. What he chooses to do with me is entirely his concern, no longer mine. I have been bought, blood on the nail. So what do I do? Can I believe the Scriptures that tell me I am loved by God, and that nothing he does is to hurt or damage me, but to train me and allow me to grow in grace and in truth? Or do I decide that its all a lie, and turn my back on it all? The problem with that is: I already know too much. I know he is God. I also know, now, exactly who I am and what I'm really like. I can't contradict him, I know how much I need him and love him. For me, to live is Christ.
So I will agree with God on this: I really am a sinner saved by grace. No longer a cliche, but a deeply-held truth. Furthermore, because he is God Almighty, the Creator of all that is, I will bow down and worship him, even when I don't feel like it, even when I imagine he is being unfair or unloving. Because the Word of God says so, I will stand on the truth that, in fact, whatever it may seem like, my God is never unfair and never unloving. I may be feeling alone in this world, but that is only to be expected. He was alone here, too. This world really is not my home, I am just passing through. "Don't love the world or anything in the world". This system I live in is of the devil, not of God. Its wants and ideals and values are alien to God and his children. I should be far more worried if I felt at home here: that would be a real warning sign.
So, there are times in our lives when we don't feel very joyful, happy, content, fulfilled or comfortable. We won't always feel that our lives have meaning or purpose or direction. We will learn things about ourselves that we won't like, but we must not deny. We have to learn not to try to act differently: it is God's job to change us on the inside. As long as we are trying to change us, we are getting in his way. Allow him to reveal the truth in you, and then co- operate with him in obedience to his Word. Let him change your way of thinking. Believe it or not, most of your attitudes and opinions were formed by the world, not by the Holy Spirit. They need to be put right. This involves shattering most of your most highly-prized assumptions about what is good, and honourable and worthy of praise. Are you willing? For Christians, this life is not about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". That is of the world: drop it.
I feel aggrieved that so many Christians led me to believe that I could be a mature believer without pain and disillusionment. The truth sets you free, but it also hurts. And the truth that hurts most is the truth about who you really are inside, beyond what you ever knew or imagined about yourself. The cross is at the centre of Christian life. Jesus did not want the cross, remember? He asked that it be taken away if possible. When he knew it wasn't possible, he accepted it in loving obedience to his Father. That is our model for how we are to live. In cold blood, with no emotionalism, no spiritual high, in full awareness of how utterly dependent you are on God for everything, you must bow the knee to him and surrender - unconditionally. We don't like hearing this: we want joy and cosy feelings. We think we should always be "up" and positive and optimistic. But that is not real. And deep down we know that. But joy comes in the morning.