What Do I Believe?

What do I believe? What do I know with certainty, at least the majority of the time? Not just with my head, but with my heart?

I'm afraid I have to start by answering a question with a question – how do I tell the difference between what is in my head and what is in my heart? Tim Keller talks about “descending with the mind into the heart,” which sounds good, but again, I'm not sure how that plays out.

Do I believe that God exists? Absolutely.

Do I believe that God is in control? I believe that he could be if he so chose, but that for reasons surpassing my understanding, he decided that free will was key. So that's where it gets tricky. To some extent, sure, he's in control, but he gives us enough slack on our leashes to hang ourselves with. All things may work together for good in the long run, but when it comes to individual decisions, it seems like we're pretty much at the mercy of our own stupidity.

Do I believe that God is good? Fundamentally, yes. And I believe that he can make good out of even the biggest messes we make. But he still lets the messiness happen, and since he functions on a timetable that is completely... other... I don't know how we are supposed to see him working. We're just too small.

Do I believe God is good for me? I'm not sure that he sees me most of the time. I fall through the cracks. I call out and hear... silence.

It's no secret that I struggle to trust. You know I have trouble with the intangible; it's not coincidental that for months you guys had to say to me, “As real as this hug is, that's how real God is.” “We love you, Jeni, but God loves you way more.” “Our love for you is a picture of how God loves you.” “This is the kingdom of God breaking in.” Up to a point, if I couldn't believe it for myself, you said you could believe it for me. We've passed that point, and I don't know how to take the next step on my own. Bebo Norman has a song with the lyric, “When your faith is hard to find, you can borrow mine.”

I feel like I'm living on borrowed faith.

You say that things really can be known for certain. My circumstances tell me that even things that appear to be set in stone can crumble in an instant. And that doesn't even get me to the mess of my feelings. That's where things really start to get ugly.

Micah told me on Sunday that for years, he's been unable to see that God is working, but that since I moved in, he can now see God working all over the place. I don't know what that means. What is it that he sees? What do people see that shows them that God is working, here and now, among us? To me it mostly just looks like a jumbled mess.

I do see that God saved my life through your family. That is something that I know for certain. What I can't understand is why he would go to the trouble, breaking down all the defenses, slowly building that tentative trust, making me believe that maybe, just maybe, I might be lovable after all, if he was just going break me all over again. God sees all my biggest fears. And he continues to either (a) allow or (b) orchestrate them into coming true.

I can't figure out how to reconcile the two sides: one side is that we need people, a family, a community, to point us to God, to help us see what we can't see ourselves. The other is that we can't rely on that family, that community; ultimately, our trust has to be in Christ alone. So how do you get from the signpost to the destination if the sign can't be relied on?

Let's say for a minute that God is in control of what has happened in the past month or so. That he uses bad decision-making processes and shallow-minded people and broken promises to move people closer to him. This is not a God that makes sense to me. Again, if I can't trust the people who are pointing me to God, how am I supposed to trust the God they are pointing to?

Yes, I'm ranting, but that's what blogs are for.

I want to believe. I want a God who is way bigger than me, and by definition, that's going to be a God I can never truly understand. I'm so tired of it being about me. My brain is a labyrinth, and I'm lost inside it. Even with guidance I kept getting off track, but then I had someone, several someones, to show me the way back. Now not only am I lost, but I know what I'm missing.

I miss you guys. I miss being integrally involved in something I believe in, something good, something real. I miss being a Cryder. Being a friend is a pale shadow when you've tasted what it is to be family. I am lonely, and I have no social skills, and I'm reaching for a God who seems to keep moving away. I am reaching. I do want him. And I can't find him. And he doesn't seem to care enough to find me.