Helpless, Helpless, Helpless

Hi Everyone,

Someone stole my email address on Tuesday. I found myself nearly overwhelmed by the loss. I mean maybe it’s a minor thing and yet it’s much like identity theft. I’m cut off from people and conversations. Much of my life takes place through something as simple as an email address. I find myself worried that other people are going to be harmed electronically by those who have hijacked my old email address.

That coupled with the pain of beginning to get in shape for the first time at the age of 50 and the urge to just walk away from it all has begun to gnaw at me again. Why bother? What good does it do to try? Nothing ever really comes from it except aggravation. Climb back into that hole you used to live in. Get high, get numb, get anything but here and now. Run Forrest, run.

There are days when it is hard to see the point of running the good race. There are days when it’s hard to see the point of being good. I’m with Paul on that one: if there is no resurrection then we are wasting our time. I realize that Paul was referring to fighting wild beasts in a coliseum somewhere while I’m whining about a stolen identity and the aches and pains of trying to take better care of myself through torture. But the end result is the same: if there is no resurrection then everything we do is a waste of time. As Paul said: “Let us eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we die.” (if there is no resurrection). I grow fonder of Paul with almost every day.

It comes down to faith doesn’t it? Am I going to hope in an thing unseen? Yes, unseen. I have no way of proving whether I’m headed in the right direction or not. Nobody does. Every human on this planet lives by faith. Some hope in the unseen realm of accident and chance. Others hope in the unseen God of scripture (or some other God(s)). Most people don’t even take the time to think about it. They live their lives seeking out the best of both worlds and the consequences of neither. In other words they live as if there is order and meaning but only until they die because there’s nothing after that. Once again eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

Nice work if you can get it I guess, at least in the short term. I’m unqualified for that position because I think too much. Because I know the need for order and the only place it can come from I’m stuck with no place to run any more. There is no place to go to get away from the truth. I’m not some amazing magician that can turn off my understanding of reality. Maybe you can I don’t know. Maybe you can pursue a world where there is no meta-narrative, no overarching view of the world, no unifying factor that ties everything together. I just know that is no longer an option for me.

I know whom I have believed in I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard to get to the end of the race. Maybe your life is a breeze. Maybe you can numb your pain with cash or religion or food, or drink. I don’t know. I just know that I can’t and that makes it rough.

I wrote all these things Wednesday afternoon and then at our Wednesday night study I was quickly put in my place through our study of Paul Miller’s book: The Praying Life. The chapter was called Helplessness (or some horrible word like that). It helped me put things back in perspective. If….if everything that comes into my life every minute of every day is for my good why do I kick against it so hard? Who do I trust? When push comes to shove and I’m in the midst of the trouble of the day who do I turn to? Usually me. Oh I pray: God why’d you do this to me? As if I deserved better or I was the only one suffering. As if God was a liar because he was sending bad things into my life and not just good.

I was never this much of a whiner when I was high probably because I didn’t have to face the pain; I simply avoided it. I was young, naïve, and oblivious who needed whining? But now I have opted to avoid avoidance and walk through the pain of life, and well, it’s a pain. And I still hold on to the delusion that life is supposed to be easy and so when it’s not, when I can’t make it through a day without trouble I get bent out of shape because I should be able to handle this. Everybody else can do it why can’t I?

I believe lies, refuse the truth and wonder why life isn’t going my way. The truth is nobody can make through life on their own. That’s why Jesus died on the cross because we couldn’t do it on our own. He did it so that we could do it through him. We are in Christ as much as we were in Adam. He is our righteousness. He is our faithfulness. He is all that we are supposed to be. He is all that we are.

We must remember that in Christ Jesus we are holy, blameless, and righteous. In Christ we are the apple of God’s eye. He loves us more than we love ourselves (thank God). He loves us enough to grow us up to full maturity. He loves us enough to make us like Christ not just on paper but in the real world. He loves us enough to hand craft the aggravation that we will encounter today. He loves us so much that he will remind us that we are (in the words of Neil Young via Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young)- helpless, helpless, helpless.

Why? Because unless we’re helpless we will never need to cry out to God for grace and mercy: we will be the proud and stiff necked people the bible tells us we are and we will find ourselves outside of Christ.

I’m a slow learner. I really have to be beaten to a blood pulp before I realize how far I’ve been straying from the humbleness that places us on the path of life.

So I endure a small loss rather ungracefully and catch a glimpse of grace in the process. God is good to us more often than not against our wills. He does what is necessary to keep us on the path of life.

I am grateful that if I make it across the finish line it will be in spite of all my efforts to derail the train.

Grace, peace and a new email address,

Brad

Cosmoyada.com