Can't

This is one of those words. You hear people say things like, "Can't isn't part of my vocabulary." and other quippy phrases that have been recycled ad nauseum by every dumb jock that ends up in front of a camera. It's popular to think positively, and that is not totally invaluable, as cleche as it has become.

Even Christians have absorbed that mentality. It isn't unfounded. "I can do all things..." and so forth. But we shouldn't ignore the other side of can't. It's an essential side that is so unpopular that Christians very rarely ever bring it up.

The truth is that Christianity starts at can't. It is the genesis of the Christian. Before the power of the saving faith can be realized, we first have to give up. The seed has to fall to the ground and die before the tree grows. To follow Christ is to understand our need for Him; to know that we can't make it on our own. Make it to heaven...sure. But I mean more practically than that. We can't get by well in life without Him.

Recently someone debated against my assertion that every Christian must first be broken. They raised good points and I realize how they got to their conclusions, but I think our disagreement was more semantic. However, I do admit that we can't judge. I am not saying that those who have had a seemingly middle-class Christianity aren't really Christians. How could I know? What I know is what I have experienced...what I have witnessed, to reclaim the term the Evangelicals have destroyed. To wit, that the moment of deepest power comes to me and many others I know and have known at the moment when we give up.

Often, for someone like me, that realization comes far too late or far too early. Far to late because I am apt to drive myself into the ground before letting go of a stubborn idea. And far too early because, in other circumstances, I am apt to not even try. But in that moment when I truly realize my inadequacy and step aside...there is the amazing reality of God.

I have been practising it lately. Radically giving over to God, that is; consciously opening a space to let Him do what He will. The awesome thing is He has not yet even once failed to do something. It's as if He's been standing there listening to me talk about Him and what I would like Him to do, and just waiting on me to finally ask Him directly. I'm not going to build some theorum or process out of it. It's a living relationship that I am grossly undercapable of understanding. But this is what I'm seeing.

Next for me is to learn how to give credit where it's due. Not vague assents, not euphemisms that could imply God without offending those who choose not to see it that way. Not luck. Not "these things happen." Not "clean living", or a "charmed life." If God has done something I should say just that. How did it happen? Because God did it. Not because I'm special, but because I surrendered to Him and let Him work what He said He would work.

I'm going to keep trying this as long as I can hold onto it in my head. God keep me from distractions that squeeze it out.

As a friend and mentor (whom God incidently used in spite of himself...only proving my point even further) once said, "I think I can, I think I can. No! I don't think I can. In fact, I think I probably can't! But God can."

Child

I read a lot of things. I look for Truth in all places. One thing I've learned is that not one prescription fits everyone. There are ultimate Truths, but below that there are so many variations. Ecology teaches us this too. There is not one single path, not ten, but thousands, millions of interactions that make up any system. Grasping this is liberating in one sense, but difficult in another.

It is liberating because of just what I'm saying...people are built differently. It is liberating to me because I find it hard to be certain that one way is right...how do I trust that it is? What if it's false? This is not just a simple question as it might seem to those who think linearly. For example, suppose we trust something because it came from a trusted source, but what if the trusted source learned it wrong and is in himself mistaken or deceived without meaning any harm? What if the source conveyed it right, but I misunderstood, or misheard, or forgot something important...all of which we do as humans every day. We all have. If you trace this out far enough, there is no end, no knowledge, no surety...only doubt and oblivion. It's called nihilism and this is my hell. I lived in it for years.

True to form, I didn't escape it by finding the right path. There are no paths. Just a jungle, living and wild and trackless. I didn't even escape. I was pulled out by a force beyond myself. A force with a face, and a body, and a voice, and a personality. I don't understand how, I barely believe it. But I know someone reached into...no not reached into...exploded like nuclear holocaust...manifested in me. If I did anything, it was nothing more than a whisper, like Harry's soul floating up toward a dementor. It was a primal cry...but even that may have been nothing more than the aura, the pretremor of the blast that was already occurring from this God arriving.

Anyway, I digress. Knowing that things are not so linear means I don't have to find the right way. I just have to be in the right way...if that makes any sense. I don't have to worry that I'm not on the exact path of the millions that intertwine with millions more intersections by which I might accidentally slip off the right path. I know we teach faith that way, but we misuse the narrow way metaphor. So for someone like me, I don't have to fret that at each of those junctures I might go astray because as long as I'm on the course toward the end goal, I'll get there one way or the other; over, under, or around, I'll arrive at the end result. This is liberating if you think like me.

It's difficult as well because there is no way to know for sure. It's hard to trust anyone or anything. Do I take action, or wait? Go or stay? Do more, or less, or make no change? I can read all kinds of stuff about how to decide, how to follow God, how to give things to God. But it's all just part of the jungle. Is the confidence of these authors faked, or genuine? Is the source of it real or imagined? Is it God or self-help in a Christian wrapper? It leaves me wanting something sure and unable to find it. I just want a road sign. Something indisputable and direct. But you don't find that in the real world. These are human inventions and humans are fallible.

So in times like these, I find myself sinking into that black mire again as I become more and more paralyzed the more I try to discern. That's when I can only cry out again. I can't figure it out. If you can that's great, and I'm happy for you...really I am. But I am the lost two-year old crying in the aisle. I can only stand there and wail until my Daddy finds me and picks me up.