To feel real again

I’ve been in the mood to hear Seven Dust lately (happily, my husband happens to have it lying around) and one song in particular sticks with me, Beautiful. Some of the lyrics are (to the best of my knowledge--don’t sue me if I’ve misquoted)

Feel--when I’m in doubt
I need something beautiful
To fill the space we’ve taken up
I need something to feel real again
Before I go numb

(Are you alive?)

I’m struggling-- I find that all the best and most well-meaning Christian teaching in the world is often so out of context for me that it becomes counterproductive. The thing is, I’ve been a Christian for a long time, and I love God-- He knows how fickle and foolish I can be but that like some strange infestation, I keep coming back... and back... and back. But I don’t think there is a clear idea of what it is supposed to look like or feel like when you are an older Christian in a fallen world with the ordinary drives and problems of humanity. In spite of the popular press, we don’t become more ethereal and ‘spiritual’ as we pass the 15 or 20 year mark. We have a handful of things that we know-- that deep profound knowing. I’ve been though some crap but I know God is good-- I know He has always been faithful. That doesn’t mean that fear and anger don’t overwhelm me, it means that they don’t dismantle my relationship with God. And I have the things that I cling to, like the profound nature of His Grace, which I can deliver in full force to others though I struggle to fully receive it-- and it’s not, as some suppose, that I fail to understand the power of sin (usually said in a tight, ominous voice) but that I’ve seen mercy triumph over judgment so many times that I know where to ‘bank my money’. But the thing is, the older I get the more it seems like God invites us to be comfortable with our physical, intellectual and emotional selves, not in the noble and grandiose way that the teachings make it sound but just plain able to be honest with ourselves.

But it’s hard to filter all the ‘good’ advice and ‘good’ teaching that would lead me awry because I’m not a newbie who’s never thought about God before, who’s never needed to rely on Him. It’s like with marriage, at some point differentiating between my agenda and my husband’s agenda is murky. Some of ‘my’ agendas are specifically for him, things that I think are to his benefit, because our lives and futures and pressing concerns have substantial overlap. In the same way, I can’t always tell anymore what is my agenda and what is God’s-- not that I can’t be oblivious and selfish, but my hopes and destiny have been tied to Christ for a long time. They are now intertwined, telling me to sacrifice my agenda and accept God’s is just confusing. I need help teasing out which is which, and it requires subtlety.

This is all a long ramble to say that I’m struggling with the experience that church life is obscuring God for me even as it is the place where I am most likely to be encouraged to pursue God. I need the encouragement, the different perspectives and experiences but the overall feel is one of creating doubt and numbing the raw beauty of God.

I’ve been here before, I’ll push through. The Lord knows that one of my weak links is my relationship with the church as an organization. And like some strange infestation, I keep coming back... and back...