BitterSweetLife

Does Angst Lead to God's Shadow?


I'm not convinced that the experience of desperation is truly God-awful. Actually, I suspect the opposite, that it's good for us. I'd just rather not say it out loud. Like the dark names of legendary, awful nemeses, there are some truths best left unpronounced.

So, just to clarify: You didn't hear me say that when present or future concerns scrape through the surface of your wood-veneer confidence it's probably for the best. I would never actually claim that having a leg pulled off your three-legged stool could improve your posture. Or that tripping and falling on your face might give you a more realistic perspective. No one wants to believe stuff like that--much less when it's elevated to the level of cosmic law.

So to save you the pain, I'll only speak to my own experience. Part of me prides me on my realism (Well done, self, you are really engaging with this thing we call the world)--but I'm forced to admit that a larger, more honest part of me gets ticked off when I'm forced to think about the rampant uncertainty and general shakiness of life. What will I be doing a year from now? Is there a future in this writing thing? If and when I get a Real Job, will I enjoy it, tolerate it, hate it--or, worst of all--loathe-it-but-pretend-it's-cool?

Without trying to, I put distance between myself and questions like this. Questions that pretend to have answers but don't (what's a word that rhymes with "orange?") are annoying and they make me mad, so I pass on them. When this happens, it's possible to adopt a faux calmness and peace. I can almost mistake it for trust. In reality, it's just psychological distance.

This brings me back to that thing that I don't want to say and in fact am not actually saying since none of us really want to hear it: It's good to have the curtains pulled back. It's necessary to see the harsh light of day. Real trust in Christ, child-like faith in the Father, demands that we rub shoulders with the concerns and desperations that crowd this earth. Only then does trust have any meaning and effect and, ultimately, any saving grace. We see the shaky thinness of our plans. At best they're hopeful guesses. But then trust steps in and the story takes an upward turn.

The future isn't really shaky-thin, not to God. In reality it's thick. It's set like cast lead, heavy and not going away. These hyperventilating souls and angry minds--they've been taken in by perspectival sleight of hand. We forget whose view of life is true and lasting: God's. In reality, the future is not a snaky labyrinth, cobwebbed and shadowy. It's a series of well-lit corridors. God saw it coming--and the statement doesn't need to be qualified. God knows my life and waits to lead me. But what will it take for me to lean on this truth without my self-made crutches?

No one wants to hear that it's a good thing to feel rough edges, carry the weight of hard decisions and taste raw desperation. So I'm not going to say it. At least not in a chipper, delighted voice. I guess I will go so far as to kind of grunt it out, though: The pain of this life drives us to God, so we had better take it on the chin. If engaging our uncertainties and fear brings us into the shadow of the Father's towering kindness, there to pause and rest, how could we ever regret it?