when forsaken

Spirituality as often spoken even by those who walked with God, along with certain versions of it today, seems to me not only something other than human, but something different than what I see in the witness of scripture.

I am told essentially that relationships don’t matter. It’s all about a relationship with you and God. If you can get that together, or let God get that together, or something like that (I know I’m not using their best words which more often than not, are steeped in scripture), then nothing in this world will matter at all. That you can get to that place. And if you can get to that place, indeed you should.

And so I’m made to feel on some sort of guilt trip, because I off and mostly on struggle with depression, and think I really am not needed or wanted, except by my wife and family, which in itself does mean a lot. Well, I can’t discount at work either, though we can all be replaced there if need be. And we all have our place in Christ’s body, the church.

I find some Christian spirituality to smack of something which in essence becomes antichristian, because it ends up skirting the Incarnation. Our faith in and of Jesus is an incarnational faith, one in which God becomes flesh, and flesh is lifted into a new place, to be sure, but it is still flesh, human.

I know I speak to some significant extent out of pain, but I am not at all open to the idea that in this life we can and therefore should reach some sort of place in which the struggles of humanity are gone. Yes, scripture does speak of perfect peace to those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in God. And yet in this life we will have trouble. Which is why we need to keep trusting. I consider the meaning to be iterative, that is something we need to experience over and over again, not unlike the filling of the Spirit (see the Acts in the New Testament on the latter).

Maybe I’m speaking from a low place away from those experiencing the heights. But go back to scripture, and consider the narrative there. As well as the nature of our faith. You have folks like Moses, Miriam, Ruth, David, Jeremiah, Esther, Mary, Peter, Paul. And many lesser known names. It is about a walk of faith in spite of many problems inside and out. I distrust any spirituality which minimizes this and somehow wants us to experience a deeper life oblivious to the pain and suffering, indeed sin, of this world.

When forsaken we cry out to God. We may have a sense that indeed God has forsaken us, as the psalmist had, and as Jesus later experienced. Though neither Jesus nor the psalmist were actually forsaken by God, they had the sense that they were. When you’re forsaken by friends, and no longer think your life matters, that somehow you just don’t fit. It all gets rather troubling and hurting. Does that make me less spiritual? I don’t think so.

Let’s continue on, and seek the Lord, and love him and each other, indeed the world. Not denying our humanity and the struggles in it. But seeking to live in a fully incarnational faith, down to earth, completely human. A faith in which we are being changed, but never out of this humanity which the Lord shares with us. The one who remains as human as we are, while indeed the glorified Lord.