San Sebastian

I've sat on this post for a week, intentionally.  Memories of spiritual trauma sometimes need time to marinate before being formed into words and sent out into the world, and even though the ones sparked by this post are minor in the grand scheme, they take a particular mindset to delve into at times.

Here's the thing - churches are flawed places.  Filled with flawed people.  As many have experienced, organized religion often becomes, in the hands of flawed people, an institution focused on exercising unfounded control and judgement on others' lives.  A place where we're told it's acceptable, and even desirable, to make definitive statements of spiritual judgement on the life of another; where we hear it's our role to evaluate the spiritual validity of another's thoughts and actions, and determine on their behalf the quality of their personal relationship with God.  Sometimes this happens out of a sense of misguided love, sometimes it's more purposefully manipulative, but regardless of the motivation, the result is usually the same.

The pain and trauma of having those around you speak negatively into your life with an authority claimed to be of God is uniquely difficult.  I think perhaps it's one of the gravest emotional wrongs we can cause one another - speaking for God in judgement of someone else.  God's not asking that of us, and the arrogance and audacity it takes to do so is a topic to be saved for another day.

For now, a walk down memory lane takes me to a boardwalk in San Sebastian, Spain, where I was traveling by myself after a long and frustrating few years in my church community.  At some point in most of our lives, we face uncertainty about whether we're on the right track in our lives and relationships, and after a lifetime of confidence in my faith and a God I knew well, doubts were beginning to creep in.  Years of hearing that the way I related to God was wrong, the places and ways I chose to do ministry weren't meaningful, the people I loved weren't worthy, my personality itself was sinful ... those things wear on even the most steadfast of people.  Maybe those constantly confronting me were right.  Maybe I was displeasing God.  I found myself broken, and questioning, and mulling over all these things in prayer as my music played on shuffle to the rhythm of the crashing waves in front of me.  And suddenly my music became my prayer:

"I haven't slept at all in days / It's been so long since we've talked / And I have been here many times / I just don't know what I'm doing wrong"

"What can I do to make you love me? / What can I do to make you care?"

As my prayers and doubts channeled themselves through its lyrics, this song walked me through letting go of the requirements others were putting on my relationship with God.  At a time when the "Christians" in my life were filled with judgement, gossip, slander, and expectations, it was easy to forget that none of those things describe God's heart or desires for me.  How often do we let God become defined by those who claim to represent spiritual things?  We find ourselves jumping through hoops or fearing conversational minefields, eventually believing this is what God wants from us.

But that mindset is unsustainable.  Whether out of exhaustion, or frustration, or hopelessness, we realize the hoops are unreachable, and any conversation can be exploited in a minefield.  It's a system designed for failure.

"There's only so much I can take / and I just gotta let it go / And who knows, I might feel better / if I don't try and I don't hope"

The Corrs brought my perspective into alignment in the bridge, which I'll share again here: 

"No more waiting, no more aching / No more fighting, no more trying ..."

"Maybe there's nothing more to say / And in a funny way I'm calm / Because the power is not mine / I'm just gonna let it fly"

There's a sense of relief that comes in letting go of pressure to do or say the "right" things to be acceptable to God.  A freedom in knowing our lives and faith aren't things to be curated or controlled for the purpose of gaining approval.  Freedom in Christ - isn't that what we claim it's all about?  The power rests with God alone, and isn't our burden to carry.

Every person's relationship with God is unique.  In my life, God chooses to speak to me through lyrics and nature.  If the beginning of this song was my prayer to God, the end of it was God speaking back.  After three and a half minutes of asking what I could do, what I could say, what I could change about myself to gain God's favor, the response was as simple as this:

"Love me."

Over and over, those lyrics resounding again, and again, and then fading into infinity.  That's what it boils down to.  No more.  No less.  It's worth another listen:

This was the beginning of the end of my allowing others to speak for God in our relationship, and although there was excessively more pain to come, as spiritual manipulation doesn't tend to roll over quietly, I left San Sebastian changed.  God had spoken with crystal clarity.

"...[W]hich is the greatest commandment ...?  ... Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment." - Matthew 22:36-38

That's it.  That's the requirement God has given.  In the times when the church stands in your way, and those around you begin to add to the message of grace, forgiveness, and love with requirements for your faith, remember the words of God alone.  God doesn't need you to jump through hoops or fit a certain ministry mold.  Let no one add to the message of God or distort the grace of Christ with their own demands.  (Proverbs 30:5-6, Galatians 1:6-9)