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Other blogs of El Gato |
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Ebook - Molly the White Mare |
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Homepage |
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Values or Virtues? |
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The Goose & the Princess |
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Man's Strength |
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Apathy & Christian Worldliness |
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Waiting |
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Christians Who Hurt Themselves |
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Waiting
Past experience is one reason. Friendships wither, marriages fail, and love grows cold not because things are bad, but because our most recent experiences tell us that things will always be bad. No matter how good things once may have been, any streak of misery will, sooner or later, become our reality. We will do anything to rid ourselves of the notion that our misery will continue, including sacrificing the people and things that are most precious to us. This doesn't have to be, but unfortunately it's how it usually is.
Our fears, of course, are the key to this. We have experienced pain before, we're experiencing it again, and it doesn't seem to be going away. At some point, the time varies depending on the personal stamina of the individual, we see no alternative but radical surgery - the complete amputation of the situation or relationship that is hurting us. Admittedly there are times when this may really be the only option, but more often than not I think our fear produces a panic that costs us the very things that are most needed in our lives. Underneath these fears are the loving, hopeful expectations with which we started, but we don't think of attempting to access these to see if there might be a better remedy, we simply cut off the offending member and proceed to convince ourselves that we've done the right thing.
And then there is blame. Painful circumstances come from without and we cannot control them, so we start blaming those nearest to us because to at least a degree these relationships we can control. Our current misery has come because some other thing or person is not strong enough, wise enough, or motivated enough to fix it or prevent it from happening. We should, of course, be looking to God for solutions, but this requires patience. Our situation is drastic. We need help RIGHT NOW! and God unfortunately seems very far away and non-responsive. If it is somebody's fault, though, we can deal with it just by dealing with that person. Problem solved!
Of course, even if the situation seems to change for the better, our fears come back soon enough, except now we've cut ourselves off from the very resources that were provided to sustain us. So we turn to others to provide what we've lost, or we turn to drugs, shallow and meaningless relationships, become addicted to fun and frolic, start eating too much or too little, complain incessantly, - absolutely anything that will give us even a bit of temporary relief from these God-awful worries. God simply becomes lost in all the dust kicked up by our ceaseless chasing after a secure and stable inner peace.
There is always time to realize the futility of all these things and turn back and release our fears to God, but the longer we continue in them the more scarred we become. There are consequences, and we find, after we come to our senses, that we are healed but still guilty, saved but sad and melancholy, secure in our spiritual circumstances but alone and empty in the world. It sometimes seems a cruel and malicious joke that we only see these things once we've cost ourselves the things that are dearest to our hearts, but this is too often how it is and I don't pretend to be wise enough to understand why.
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