Treasures of Darkness

I heard a song the other day, that the second it started, transported me to another time and place.  The lyrics were like the words from my heart.   As I sat there lost in the memories of what came before, I was struck by how connected music is the experiences of my life.

Just hearing a song I am once again a child, or falling in love for the first time, or finding God.  And as I sat there, I got this idea, for a kind of musical therapy.  I decided to make a soundtrack for my spiritual journey. 

 Volume 1, I called “Searching”, and it brings me back to a time when I desperately wanted more out of life, but I didn’t know what.  A time when I knew there was something bigger, and yet I didn’t know His name.  It is about being dissatisfied with just me.  It’s about longing and yearning.

 Volume 2, called “Unspeakable”, for no one word seemed accurate.  Joy, peace, love, wonder, majesty…  It is about finding what I was looking for, the grace and awesomeness of God.

 Volume 3, called “Disillusionment”, is filled with songs that speak of inconsistencies and hypocrisy, of confusion and the beginnings of despair.  It reminds me of a time of frustration, when I began to see all the problems, but felt trapped in a prison of religion and on a treadmill of perfection.

 Volume 4 is called “Anger”, these songs are my way of confronting both those people, and the institution that caused me so much pain.  Many of them also described the way that I felt about God, not the true God, but the God they had showed me.  When I listen to Volume 4 I ironically feel at peace.

Volume 5 is as yet untitled and unmade.  Shall I call it “stepping outside the box” or “Coloring outside the lines”, or pershaps “Embracing the Limbo”.  This is where I am right now.

I don’t know that I could explain how therapeutic making this “soundtrack” has been, but I don’t think that I will stop with Vol. 5.

This weekend I spent some time looking through the phone book, and a little bit on the web, looking at area churches.  But it always comes back to the same thing.  They are all so churchy!  

I think about going, and then I think “why would I want to inflict that on myself?”  Do I really want to go and sit in a building and hear them preach on “17 Ways to a better prayer life”.  During which they will be sure to insert some of the following: tithing, building fund, pastoral authority, and why everyone else outside that church is going to hell.  

The only thing I miss is the corporate worship.  The actual worship part that is.  Not the overly-emotionalized hype version that we sometimes had.  But the times when it was actually worship. Beyond that, I find very little in “church” that feeds my faith.  The sermons do nothing for me.  They are usually focused on how we aren’t doing enough.  We aren’t giving enough money, or praying enough, or reading enough Bible.  We aren’t attending church enough, or witnessing enough, or teaching enough Bible studies.  We haven’t won enough people to the church (they say the Lord, but they mean church). 

It’s all about us, and its all about performance.  And all it does is teach us that nothing we do will ever be enough. They never tell us that God loves us just the way we are.  They never seem to mention that God cares more about our relationship with him, than our service.  Yes, the Bible does mention that our faith needs works to be alive.  But are all those things listed above actually works of faith?  Or are they works of obligation?

I believe the true works of faith are anchored in relationships.  The foundational relationship, our relationship with God, is anchored by an indwelling Love.  Our physical bodies are not big enough to contain that love, and as a natural progression, it will pour out on those that we come into contact with.  This is an unavoidable occurrence.  That is why James says “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.” (2:26)

This morning I was reading in the Message Bible, and I came across this scripture: John 6:37 “Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.”

I think this really struck me, because with the exception of the first maybe 6 months to a year (after my conversion), I have felt a constant yearning, an emptiness, a hunger for something more.  And this morning, it really clicked as to why.  I was aligned to a church, an organization, to doctrine, to my theology, to Christianity, to a religious culture, but I was not aligned to Christ.  I was taught that all this was supposed to fill with me with Joy and peace, and make me Holy.  Instead I found that every day, I felt more empty and worthless and depressed.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t try to show me the way out.  Looking back, I can see so many instances where he led, gently and graciously, and like a stubborn toddler, I would throw tantrums anytime he led me somewhere I did not want to go.

Moving to Georgia, and the isolation and struggle that follow, was the darkest period of my life.  I couldn’t understand why a God I thought was good and loving would bring me such pain and suffering.  I didn’t know why, but I knew who to blame.  For God had made it clear to me before I ever moved that it was His will that I do so.  So I never questioned that I was where God wanted me to be, but I often questioned why.  I became convinced that God was some sort of cosmic bully who wanted nothing more than to torture me.

Then one day, I was praying and asking God “Why? Why would you do this to me?  What did I do to deserve this?”  And God spoke to me through his word.  He spoke to me these verses:

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 (NIV)

2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
I would love to say that the minute I had a glimpse of His purpose that things turned around.  But just because I knew why, didn’t mean I had to like it or agree.  I saw that before the move, I had been so immersed in the culture of Christianity, that it became easy to go with the flow.  And God had to remove me from all that, before I could see that I trusted in that culture to guide and shape me, rather than trusting in He who created me.

Which brings me back to the verse I read this morning, and reminds me that when I feel that emptiness inside, when I am filled with soul hunger, I need to stop what I am doing, grab some Bread of Life, and get my alignment checked.