I appreciate those of you who have weathered the length and withstood the pretentiousness of the last three parts of this, the story of my journey through faith up to this point. There is both excitement and weariness within me as I realize how little of my life this story recounts, and how much may still be yet to come. There is no doubt, this life is hard, despite what Osteen and all his brethren may assure us. But there is indeed wonder glimmering through the cracks, potholes, and sharp edges of this road we shuffle down.
I promise to return to a more consistent blogging sense of mind following this final part of my story...
It was not until after I graduated from college and began serving as a missionary in New England that I reclaimed a measure of equilibrium. It was during a cold winter in Northboro, Massachusetts when I experienced the most poignant of subtle revelations (for there has never been an audible voice from Heaven as I once desperately desired, but only the subtle nudges of the God who does not adhere to our daily planners and formulaic self-help schedules). Still I feared I was years away from figuring out the structure of my life, from being pure and confident like those members of my childhood church standing up and singing with certainty. How could I preach salvation if I was not even confident of my own? I was conflicted about the wisdom of the mobilization board sending me out. I certainly did not feel like a capable missionary, and I wondered if my sponsors suspected this self-doubt. However, it was only while accepting the task to serve in student ministry programs that I finally found release from the tensions of my youth.
The answer to this agonizing question – the profound discovery of truth – settled before my eyes in the gentlest of ways. While clicking across the Internet one afternoon, bored and carrying around the normal, back-of-my-mind despondency, I came across a webpage that contained all the concert transcripts by one of my favorite musicians, the late Rich Mullins, a songwriter also hailed as a poet and a missionary. I began lazily reading through some of the stories and statements from his concerts, knowing that Mullins was notorious for being controversially honest, no matter the fallout. Then I read an anecdote Mullins told at one of his last concerts, a few weeks before his death, about the time a producer from a Christian cable television station called to investigate him because her show was considering inviting him as a guest. The woman proceeded to question him about when he “accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior.” Mullins replied that he was around three years of age, and the woman incredulously asked how this could have taken place. “Well, I was in Sunday School and we prayed, ‘Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in to stay. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus,’” Mullins sang. The woman told him that wasn’t what she meant, and asked him to clarify when he “knowingly” accepted Christ. When he told her he was probably a third grader at the time, she once again questioned him in disbelief, arguing that he couldn’t have possibly known then what he was praying. It was Mullin’s answer that shook the very foundations of the world I had fashioned around myself. He told the producer, “Lady, we never understand what we’re praying, and God, in his mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to his wisdom.”
Over the next few months, my moralistic and decisionistic view of God and salvation began to melt away from me like an ice sculpture set out beneath the blazing sun. Of course! Never have God’s movements or his emotional qualities hinged on my actions or my prayers. In the reality of God, no one on earth has complete understanding, and therefore, no one can truly know all the ramifications of their prayerful requests. If God is truly transcendent then nothing can deter him from his chosen purposes, not even the sheer tonnage of human sin and ignorance. And if God is truly immanent, then he “knows me better than I know myself,” as St. Augustine would agree, and I should not fear that God might be duped by prayers possibly derailed by a misguided emotion or desire.
I found confidence, finally, in letting go, rather than desperately trying to keep hold of every loose end of my life. Realizing that God communes with me solely according to his love and wisdom, rather than my vain strivings, I live in freedom. The stress of maintaining a well-checked gauge of moral compliance has vanished. I believe mercy is an integral characteristic of God, and is daily shown to me. To honor him, I resist temptation and sin, but even in my failure, I have faith that my behavior does not alter his love for me. This faith is not false, for it is grounded in God and not myself. It is certain, yes, but certain like a man who, though walking in the dark, whistles all the while. My literary hero, Frederick Buechner, writes in his book, Wishful Thinking, “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. … Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway. A journey without maps.”
I recognize that there is struggle in this life. I have first hand experience that in life there are significant moments of confusion, of doubt, and separation. I suspect I will experience such times again and again. Nevertheless, I do not despair of my life. I believe that through even the difficult times, God brings laughter. He brings joy. I do not find my legs trembling to stand anymore, and no longer do I have to fake a smile.
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