So I’ve been pretty upset with You, as You know. But I didn’t really know exactly why there’s a rift, and why I don’t want to be close to you.
I’m definitely upset about the fact that I lost my Bible, and I definitely feel that you could have helped prevent that, and it does make me upset and hurt, tbh.
But that’s obviously not the real problem. So I was sitting here, trying to get work done. I specifically skipped Hannah’s birthday party because I have work to do. But as I was sitting here, I was feeling this strong disconnect, like a gaping hole in my heart that makes me not want to do anything.
It’s very hard for me to be a productive workhorse when I feel so apathetic, like there’s no reason for me to be doing anything because nothing truly matters.
So I went outside to walk around the driveway. I probably did it for 30 minutes. I started analyzing why I was mad at you, and why I am keeping a wall between us.
I came to the conclusion that the last church we went to is what threw me; what messed me up. After everything there happened, things fell apart for me, with You. As I was walking outside, I came up with a picture in my head of what happened, and what it felt like was like the ground had been intentionally pulled out from under me. I imagined myself stepping onto a boat. I was in the middle of the ocean, and I didn’t have an image for what I was stepping from, but I was trying to step onto a boat, and as I came down to rest my first foot on the boat, the boat pulled away from me quickly. But I didn’t just fall in the water, no. Every possible part of my body banged up against the boat on the way down. I was broken, bruised, and felt humiliated, and now I had to figure out how to simply survive. I imagined the people on the boat laughing and saying f*** you to me as I tried catching my breath in the water, in the middle of the ocean, with nothing else to climb up on.
That scenario is what I came up with for how I felt going through this last season. Why? I don’t really know. I feel tricked about the Church, as a whole, because this stuff happens far too often for us. I don’t feel like that f*** you reaction is an accurate reflection of the hearts of the people involved. I just feel tricked.
In the end, I realize that what happened was I had my eye on the wrong thing. I placed my trust in people, over You. How? I don’t know—it seems very easy to do. It’s annoying. And it’s a nuanced problem, because you created us to look to others for leadership, mentorship, and even spiritual fatherhood.
In spite of that, though, we can’t look at people over You. We can’t rest in people. We can, and should, build each other up as the body of Christ. But we can’t rely solely on each other. You are a jealous God, and you created us to look to You. But you’re invisible, and humans aren’t. So I’m inclined towards what I can see.
Which is probably why I have to choose to invest in You in the morning, and invest in You in the evening. I just have such a hard time tying investing in our relationship with the needs of my wife and kids. It’s hard to sit and read the Bible when I have work to do, bills to pay, a wife to love, and kids to raise. It’s just hard.