Without the Strength to Shout
My old mentor is not the ever-present comfort he was in the tormented early years of my faith. You, O LORD, drew him away, as you have drawn everyone else away.
Yesterday, however, he gave me an assignment: read the final chapter of 1 Chronicles and make a list of things I am thankful for.
I don't like assignments. I don't like being taught how to learn. Only he, the man of God whom I trust above all others, has the authority to bring me to this moment in which I am doing as I have been told.
And this assignment is difficult. Even now I know the ultimate answer to which I will build, but it will not be a pleasant journey.
What exactly do I have to be thankful for, my Holy Father?
Yes, I have a full belly and a roof over my head and a car. Yes, the most crucial components of human stability and dignity are given me. Yet even now may I not look even one tiny step beyond these things without feeling like a spoiled ingrate? Might I even look at these things directly, and wonder?
Might I wonder at my full belly of refined sugar and cold sticks of meat?
Might I wonder at this room? This rotting place, this crushing cell?
Thanks for the car, I suppose.
Thank you for my friends? They are gone, Lord. Is it actually a hundred people whom I loved like family who have turned against me, or dropped me like deadweight?
Thank you for my freedom? My freedom is dying, and you will not let me defend it.
Thank you for my writing? A useless junk pile which not one person seeks.
Thank you for my brothers and sisters in Christ? I am alone with you. I feel most alone around people and most alone of all at Church.
To say nothing of how not good it is for this man to be without his helper.
Still water goes stagnant. It is not the water’s fault or intent, it just naturally happens. I am trapped in a prison of routine, forced to cling desperately to things I care nothing about, and I am alone. I long for some external amazement, and only three externals prevail: things that remind me of my weakness, things that remind me of my loneliness, and God's incorrigible silence.
Even now I feel that prick of guilt, and I ask again: May I not, like everyone else, declare my first world problems to be problems indeed and declare that I have very little to be thankful for?
Not to mention the decade and a half of horrors and agonies I had to endure in order to reach this point.
Ultimately, God, I have only one thing. One shining beacon of the good and lovely and Joyful which grows ever stronger. One thing for which I am thankful indeed.
That something is your word. My understanding of Scripture grows by the day, as does my delight in meditating on it day and night. What you reveal to me in your word is new and refreshing and spectacular. It is what you reveal to me, Lord of Heaven’s Armies, that makes me understand who I am. It makes me understand how a boy with my gifts could fail five classes in high school. It makes me understand why I so dearly love people yet have so stubbornly rejected all establishment, Christian or no.
It is precisely your word, my dear Father, that makes me look back on these pained and troubled words as a bloody hill which my Great Captain Jesus Christ has helped me take.
I remain, of course, as human as I have the right to be. This blurb will cure no illness and heal no wound. Even as I write I feel a churning current of bitterness at the fact that this blurb will be tossed uselessly on the pile with the rest of them, and God will make no use of it.
But I had to write it.
I am thankful for Ruth and Naomi, who followed you after you destroyed their lives.
I am thankful for John the Baptist, who deserved better than what he received for his service to you.
I am thankful for Job, who lived and died without knowing your agenda against him.
I am thankful for Elijah, who knew what it feels like to be alone, even if he did not have to be alone around people.
I am thankful for Jeremiah, who served you even when he learned your true nature.
I am thankful that you have given me the privilege of seeing that these terrible statements are both true and untrue. That you have given me the courage to delve into the deepest depths of the beauties and horrors of Truth. I thank you that you have led me in your righteousness and have given me assurance even in my exhausted lamentations that your glory is worth suffering for.
I am thankful for the tears of Joy I have wept at your feet.
My old mentor is not the ever-present comfort he was in the tormented early years of my faith. You, O LORD, drew him away, as you have drawn everyone else away.
Yesterday, however, he gave me an assignment: read the final chapter of 1 Chronicles and make a list of things I am thankful for.
I don't like assignments. I don't like being taught how to learn. Only he, the man of God whom I trust above all others, has the authority to bring me to this moment in which I am doing as I have been told.
And this assignment is difficult. Even now I know the ultimate answer to which I will build, but it will not be a pleasant journey.
What exactly do I have to be thankful for, my Holy Father?
Yes, I have a full belly and a roof over my head and a car. Yes, the most crucial components of human stability and dignity are given me. Yet even now may I not look even one tiny step beyond these things without feeling like a spoiled ingrate? Might I even look at these things directly, and wonder?
Might I wonder at my full belly of refined sugar and cold sticks of meat?
Might I wonder at this room? This rotting place, this crushing cell?
Thanks for the car, I suppose.
Thank you for my friends? They are gone, Lord. Is it actually a hundred people whom I loved like family who have turned against me, or dropped me like deadweight?
Thank you for my freedom? My freedom is dying, and you will not let me defend it.
Thank you for my writing? A useless junk pile which not one person seeks.
Thank you for my brothers and sisters in Christ? I am alone with you. I feel most alone around people and most alone of all at Church.
To say nothing of how not good it is for this man to be without his helper.
Still water goes stagnant. It is not the water’s fault or intent, it just naturally happens. I am trapped in a prison of routine, forced to cling desperately to things I care nothing about, and I am alone. I long for some external amazement, and only three externals prevail: things that remind me of my weakness, things that remind me of my loneliness, and God's incorrigible silence.
Even now I feel that prick of guilt, and I ask again: May I not, like everyone else, declare my first world problems to be problems indeed and declare that I have very little to be thankful for?
Not to mention the decade and a half of horrors and agonies I had to endure in order to reach this point.
Ultimately, God, I have only one thing. One shining beacon of the good and lovely and Joyful which grows ever stronger. One thing for which I am thankful indeed.
That something is your word. My understanding of Scripture grows by the day, as does my delight in meditating on it day and night. What you reveal to me in your word is new and refreshing and spectacular. It is what you reveal to me, Lord of Heaven’s Armies, that makes me understand who I am. It makes me understand how a boy with my gifts could fail five classes in high school. It makes me understand why I so dearly love people yet have so stubbornly rejected all establishment, Christian or no.
It is precisely your word, my dear Father, that makes me look back on these pained and troubled words as a bloody hill which my Great Captain Jesus Christ has helped me take.
I remain, of course, as human as I have the right to be. This blurb will cure no illness and heal no wound. Even as I write I feel a churning current of bitterness at the fact that this blurb will be tossed uselessly on the pile with the rest of them, and God will make no use of it.
But I had to write it.
I am thankful for Ruth and Naomi, who followed you after you destroyed their lives.
I am thankful for John the Baptist, who deserved better than what he received for his service to you.
I am thankful for Job, who lived and died without knowing your agenda against him.
I am thankful for Elijah, who knew what it feels like to be alone, even if he did not have to be alone around people.
I am thankful for Jeremiah, who served you even when he learned your true nature.
I am thankful that you have given me the privilege of seeing that these terrible statements are both true and untrue. That you have given me the courage to delve into the deepest depths of the beauties and horrors of Truth. I thank you that you have led me in your righteousness and have given me assurance even in my exhausted lamentations that your glory is worth suffering for.
I am thankful for the tears of Joy I have wept at your feet.
