Fear and Intimacy

I can remember one time I randomly received a text from my dad after sneaking off to a party in high school. It just said this:  "Hey, I love you and just wanted to let you know that I'm proud of you."

Fantastic.

I spent the rest of the evening with people asking me "are you okay?" "you seem tired."
Well, yeah. Now I felt like a guilty asshole with my sweet father back at home thinking I was dreaming about sugar plums and butterflies, when I was at some random person's house funneling a couple of crappy cheap beers. I just felt nauseous. And this time, not because of the beer. I can guarantee that if he texted me "I'm disappointed in you. we know you're not home, and we think you're a drunk whore," like I expected, that I would have laughed it off and texted back "what's new, you're always disappointed in me." Why couldn't he always be like that? No, he had to be all sweet and proud of me for who knows what.

I hear the same kind of expectations nowadays when it comes to God. It seems like every time someone explains God's love as never-ending and how important sharing God's LOVE is with "sinners" instead of scaring them into Christianity with fear, either in some sermon or even a facebook post of some kind, I will almost inevitably see the same response. Someone (with good intentions) will immediately say "Well, then people will just go on sinning all the time and simply just ask for forgiveness."

Yup, probably.

Look, God isn't some big teddy bear sitting in the sky. People are right in that he isn't a wimp and walking around like Barney the Dinosaur singing "I love you" nonchalantly as if he's oblivious to the pain and torture going on in the world. But... he also isn't Zeus with human characteristics waiting to strike down whoever sins first.

Have you ever been watching youtube, and somehow watching videos of neuroscientists explaining chronic traumatic encephalopathy turned into watching videos of people popping their gigantic back cysts? Just me, then? I can remember this one time in particular where I randomly stumbled upon videos on tsunamis.  I started watching a video, originally assuming it was a news source, that ended up being cellphone videos of people personally watching the tsunami in Japan. If I had to give you advice, never watch these, if they still even exist. I never cry. My husband gets nervous about this strange personality flaw of mine. If I'm crying, it's a really really big deal to me. This made me cry so insanely hard that I probably woke the dead and caused some kind of zombie apocalypse in Tulsa, Oklahoma. People were standing on a large hill overlooking the city and recording the tsunami with their cellphone. It started in one corner, and they are literally watching the hoards of water rushing towards running people on low ground. They knew some of these people. Family, loved ones, acquaintances. Some of them were young children. All running on dry land, and only those standing on the hill knew this tsunami was going to inevitably sweep up and kill them. All you heard was screaming. The main guy filming this had his screams translated into English subtitles at the bottom "God no! Please help them! God please!" This was screamed over and over again next to other blood-curdling screams of many women. All you heard was screaming. If I had to have any sort of glimpse of hell on earth, this was probably it. It was one of the most satanic disgusting things I've ever seen. I couldn't possibly imagine the pain these people were experiencing. Everything was gone. Everything and everyone, and now they were haunted by the nightmares of their loved ones being swept up by water as they watched helplessly.

 A couple days later I saw a quote by some famous pastor blaming some natural disaster on whatever sin was most controversial at that time. Oh tornadoes ripping apart people's homes and killing their family? Nevermind the fact that Oklahoma is probably the most conservative state in the nation, God totally wanted to destroy lives by telling Oklahoma that it just wasn't quite conservative enough. Because anything liberal is evil. And, of course, Wall Street is still totally pristine. They're sinless. Duh.

Let me just say something. If God had anything to do with that tsunami in Japan, of which i only witnessed about 8 minutes, then he is the most cruel God that has ever existed. I have witnessed people possessed off their rocker, and have never seen anything as satanic as that tsunami. I can not compare some witch doctor with weird glossy eyes screaming even weirder things in another voice with young mothers on a hillside screaming at other mothers having their children ripped out of their arms. It doesn't compare. Give me the creepy possessed or severely psychologically unstable dude any day over that. What I'm saying is that I would hang around a demon than worship whatever God this pastor was following. That would be a God who had an obsession to kill, steal, and destroy. Which... doesn't really sound like the jedi counsel. More like the dark side of the force. If you know what I'm hinting at here.

We don't follow satan. We're not following a God that wants to destroy our lives. He doesn't want to "teach us a lesson" by killing our firstborn child or ripping a couple limbs off because we might have said the "f" word at John Doe's wedding. As a dad, sometimes He'll let us know we're doing something stupid. Because He enjoys conversation and enjoys being our Dad. But sometimes we put our own selves in stupid situations (obviously I'm not including natural disasters here at all). If  someone took off with my purse at some party I went to, that would be my own fault for bringing expensive items while I was intoxicated, not God's fault. If a drunk driver hit and killed a family, that's not God trying to teach the drunk driver a lesson about the dangers of driving over the legal limit, that's the drunk driver being an idiot and destroying someone's life in the process. I don't believe God would intentionally kill a family to teach one person a lesson about the dangers of drinking behind the wheel.

There are people who will take advantage of anything. Including the love of God. Yeah, He'll love them regardless of the fact that they are living lives no different than they used to. And yes, I'm not ignoring the fact that He hates sin. But if our sole purpose was just to simply get into heaven, then why not? Makes sense. I live however the hell I please (no pun intended), ask for forgiveness every now and then, and voila! Fun time on earth with a free ticket to heaven! One of the super weird aspects of God is the fact that he craves communication and intimacy with pathetic humans that he created Himself. On top of it, he won over death by sending his own son to die in our place. That's weird. There is nothing normal about that. It's so easy and natural (and quite frankly, makes more sense) to view God as a bad God. Because intimacy with humans and some bubbly consistent love for us makes about as much sense as a porcupine working in a balloon factory. He knows what we do in our spare time, for goodness sakes. You'd think he would hate us. So for those that say... "but God hates sin and so it's better for people to be scared into Christianity so they won't go on living the way they used to." I can't agree.

Anyone who has ever read Isaiah can say that there is an awesome fear of the Lord. He's powerful. I mean, dang, He's awesome and powerful. Hosea 3:5 says "they shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days." Before this, Hosea mentions the yearning the Israelites will have for Him. There is an emphasis placed on the "anxious" fear of His.... goodness. On top of it, this fear of the ultimate good and loving nature of God usually comes after a yearning one has for Him in the first place. However, the Bible also says He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound mind. I don't know everything about God. I would never even kind of claim that. Revelation says that there are creatures that sit in front of the throne surrounded by eyes, and these creatures have something new to praise Him about every second (cool, huh?). None of us will ever know every aspect of God, it's one of the cool mysteries we'll continue to unravel. But leading people to Christ through fear-based mechanisms and screaming hell at them is using an attribute counter-opposite to his character. While we are told to fear the Lord, it's not talking about me seeing God as a terrible being, but a mighty one. It doesn't cause me to be afraid of God, but to surrender to Him. To worship Him in reverence. Psalm 19 describes it as "pure." Being afraid of something would never be defined as pure and lovely, it's terrible. While sin is something that obviously should be talked about and not ignored, and God hates sin (obviously), I believe that living in a constant fear of hell is just another way that satan draws attention back to himself. A toddler, for instance, will do anything to draw attention to themselves, even if it's for negative reasons. I don't believe I'm supposed to crap myself with fear for God's thunderbolt and a path to hell every time I might mess up. As a Christian, I've never been afraid of going to hell. Why would I? Hell isn't an option for me. That's a good feeling.

Just like with my dad, the more people see of the insane incomprehensible love God has for them, the less they usually want to keep sinning. If you grew up with parents, or just a mom or a dad, and they greeted you every morning by looking you straight in the eye saying "you have no idea what kind of difference you will make in this world. I love you. I'm proud of you," would you be more or less likely to continually and purposely disobey them? What if they kept telling you everything you were failing at? They already hate you, why not? Some people will accept Christ and then just kind of flop around living however they please. That's also all that matters to them. Just squeeeezing their way into heaven, if they make it. But what kind of walk is that? Should Christianity not also be about the intimacy we share with God, and not just about trying to secure a place in heaven? A fear-based sermon is only about heaven vs. hell and does not explain why we even want to have a relationship with him in the first place. There seems to be a huge concern that people will "take advantage" of the love of God if we tell people about His true loving nature, when wanting to sin less is part of a natural relationship with Him. If He didn't communicate with humans, then that concern would make more sense. My point is that some people will take advantage of anything they can get by with. While others are living in fear of hell, or others are simply trying to just squeeze their way into heaven, others are living a life involving growing in intimacy with the God of the flipping Universe. You don't develop a close relationship by screaming at your child, you develop it from love. You develop intimacy by talking and loving up on your spouse, not telling them they suck at washing pans. How much more powerful is it that we focus on love instead of fear?

Growing up Christian

I grew up in the church my whole life as a PK if I haven’t said this 46,000 times on my posts already. And there’s a reason PKs are either viewed as super sheltered or Katy Perry (who I happen to think is kind of awesome, but you get my point). There’s not too many that fall “in between” because, quite frankly, it’s super hard to be forced into a religion without any explanation about why you believe what you believe. You have all of these questions in your head, but you’re too embarrassed to ask them and are probably getting yelled at for being late for Sunday school instead. You either follow it blindly, secretly have doubts and don’t tell anyone because your dad is practically Moses, or one day wake up and go “why the hell am I following this guy anyway?” I was the latter. Over time, I developed a sense of identity. I was a Christian, but I also knew why. I would definitely always say that having your faith tested is one of the most important things a Christian can ever go through. Over time, however, I’ve also picked up on ridiculous Christian cliches. I mean, I lived in the church. Most of them are pretty much parents trying to get their kids to stop doing “bad things” by giving some random Bible explanation that doesn’t actually exist. And da da da (cue awesome music)… this is exactly why some people are leaving the church. Because this crap keeps getting passed down from generation to generation, and no one is stepping back and saying “where did you even get that idea?” I remember this lady ragging on some guy’s smoking habit and how sinful it was. Smoking cigarettes is one of those habits that has been randomly accepted as a sin that was accepted as a social expectation just fifty years ago. All of a sudden, it’s evil and a sign of rebellion, and none of us know why. One time in particular, my dad went to the mall and saw a member of the church he recognized, and the guy spent the whole time hiding a cigarette behind his back with the smoke bellowing out of his head like some angry cartoon character. He looked simply ridiculous, came across as having the intelligence level of an amoeba, and had no reason to hide. So what if your pastor sees you smoke? If you just told your doctor that you stopped smoking, and he saw you, that would be a different story.

"But, your body is a temple" the lady said while chewing on her Big Mac. “I mean, I know he has a severe anxiety disorder, but smoking marijuana is a sin, everyone knows that” She continued while downing two lab-created pain medications with possible spontaneous combustion and peeing fire as side effects. 

It seems like people are absolutely convinced my generation is super evil because we’re finally asking the question “why?” Or we’re wicked for standing up for equality and the financially disadvantaged, and so many church members can’t seem to read past Leviticus to get to root of Jesus’ nature. These same people will then judge individuals for leaving the church after they couldn’t provide any answers without wimpy “Christian-accepted” responses.

"My mom died, I was so close to her. Why would God would let this happen?"
"Well, He has His reasons. It was in His plan. I’ll pray for you to be happy!" 

Well, no wonder someone would leave the church after hearing that. You just indirectly agreed with this person that God was the reason her mother died, and somehow she's not being a good Christian because she's not smiling. Honey, be HAPPY God killed your mother, she's having so much more fun than you right now mourning and stuff. That's pretty much what you're saying. In reality, you don’t feel like taking the time to sit down to actually talk about it, refer her to someone that can, or just shut up and give her a damn hug already. Let me say this: Bad things happen to Christians too. I get that Paul talks about considering it joy when we face trials, but having a close family member or having your innocent four-year-old child die is not a "trial." A trial is getting a pay cut or having your best friend you worked next to for ten years quit. Losing a child is hell. It was hard enough just watching my grandparents go through that, I couldn't possibly imagine what that personally feels like. Yes, I believe that God is wonderful and can bring life or something good out of a terrible situation. Maybe someone will come to Christ through it. But he didn't kill a child to cause someone to accept Christ. Death is something really super crappy we face as mortal humans that you don't just "get over" one day. Stop saying other cliches like "oh he just wanted to take his child home." No, God didn't kill your four-year-old to "take her home" for kicks and giggles. That wasn't God. Jesus himself cried after his friend died, shouldn't that mean something? We can't go around saying Christian cliches to make people stop crying because it's making us uncomfortable. Mourning is a natural part of life, and we shouldn't try to stop the mourning process. Encouragement and having a shoulder to lean on as a friend? Yes. Crying with them? Yes. Stopping the mourning process because all Christians should slap a fake smile on their face when they're going through a difficult time? No. 

 I really hate the fact that so many people are actually looked down upon for researching and asking questions. If they leave the faith, it’s totally their Christian-hating professor’s fault or their evil ways of partying, and has nothing to do with the fact that you told them to blindly follow the Bible their entire lives without offering explanations. Real explanations, not “Mom, how come this seems like a total contradiction in the Bible?” and you reply with, “God just has his reasons, now eat your spinach.” I get that not everything in Christianity can be figured out in an algorithm. Having some open cool mysteries of life like “when does life begin?” are things that will simply never be answered, neither by science nor religion. There is no “soul entering” enzyme I learned about in embryology. I also believe in reading the Bible and God speaking through His Word, don’t think I’m discrediting the Bible at all. But I really believe one of the reasons colleges are mentioning an increase in theology degrees is because many want their questions answered. That’s a good thing. I know many people that would last about five minutes in an intelligent theological discussion with an atheist because they really don’t have a clue about what they believe or even what half of the Bible says. I’m sure any atheist reading this will laugh in agreement. I know very few atheist friends of mine that don’t know more about the Bible than the average Christian, because they researched how to argue with one. That’s not okay of us. Also, as someone who graduated with a science degree, I really believe that the reason so many kids start learning science and shying away from God is because you forgot to mention that science is not actually the opposite of Christianity. God created science. But science (which you taught them is “wrong”) seems to be answering their questions a lot more than empty legalism.