layers and loopholes in my fairytale-box-faith.

As some of you may know already, I'm currently enrolled at a Christian university as a Reconciliation Studies and Biblical/Theological Studies double major (with a new Gender Studies minor that was just implemented last semester, WOOT!). Half of my classes are Bible classes, a few revolve around gender/sexuality and the last one is a reconciliation class. As you can see, pretty much all of my classes have a serious Christian bent to them.

I don't know why it surprises me, but it wasn't until I started attending a Christian school that I truly questioned what I believe, picking apart the layers to the in-between-cracks of the things I'd always taken for granted. This past year has seriously been one big wrestling match with God, where I've been knocked down and thrown about and tossed back and forth, only to come up swinging again because I'm not going to give up without answers. 

I've taken long walks and literally done nothing but question God and yell at him and rack my brain for answers I just don't have. And I got so mad, I still get mad, because how are we supposed to tell what's cultural and what still applies today and why isn't he more specific on gender and sexuality and why do so many people disagree on so many things? 

And Love smiles, come child. Come with your questions and loosely strung together answers with confusion dripping through clenched fists that can barely see the path ahead but just keep walking forward. 

For the longest time, I felt like a horrible Christian for having these thoughts, like getting angry or confused with God was a one-way ticket to hell. And then I got to class one day and we started talking about covenant and how that concept implies a two-way street between us and God. Our covenant with God is a dialogue, not a monologue, which includes room for us to grieve, to question, to yell. I love what Walter Brueggemann says in his chapter, "The Costly Loss of Lament,"

"One loss that results from the absence of lament is the loss of genuine covenant interaction, since the seccond party to the covenant (the petitioner) has become voiceless or has a voice that is permitted to speak only praise and doxology... The outcome is a "False Self," bad faith that is based in fear and guilt and lived out as resentful or self-deceptive works of righteousness. The absence of lament makes a religion of coercive obedience the only possibility."

It can't be reduced to only praise on our behalves, for then it's not authentic. The lament psalms clearly show this kind of raw relationship with God, one with its ups and downs, where God is greatly to be praised in one psalm before being severely questioned, called out and yelled at in the next (see Psalm 89 for a great example). For God initiates this covenant, he comes in and makes his promises and gives us the freedom to hold him to those, even from our feeble vantage point that rarely ever sees the full picture. 

And that's beautiful, isn't it? It's one of the first times I felt like I started to piece some answers together since being at school. My relationship with God stopped feeling like a constricting cardboard box, squeezing me in with its tight parameters and stipulations that made it hard to breathe. This relationship, this covenant is organic and growing, it's lively and messy, pounding-fists-anger and leaping-joy-praise, spreading its seeds out into the soil of our entire lives, a slow walk into sanctification and Christ-centered renewal that holds on even when we push back. When we are faithless, he is faithful.

And every time I push back brings me closer to His heart, because I'm trying, I'm really trying to work out this faith with small steps forward. I guess I don't see it as a sin to get angry at God anymore, because he can take it and he sees the drive underneath the doubt and confusion, the determination to seek him and find him in the haze and pinpoint his Light.

For that anger and doubt is not futile, it doesn't sit there and fester but goes straight up to the only One who can truly reach out and help, the only One who keeps all of his promises and vows to never leave our sides. It's a healthy kind of anger, one expressed in the context of a real relationship that lives and moves and breathes. And that's real, you know? It's more than a Sunday school answer to a freaking difficult question, it goes beyond just repeating Jesus loves me when I start to question that love and pick it apart in all its radiant beauty.

But I hold onto Christ, still. I hold fast and I cling, even when I don't have the answers and I don't feel like God has the answers. I know this to be true because I see God's handiwork so abundantly in my life, see his fingerprints on the nature around me and his imprints of grace in the hearts of others. There are so many things that point straight back to him with sweeping floodlights and laser beams.

But I'm done assuming and blabbering out my beliefs because the Bible tells me so when I've never actually read that part of the Bible for myself. I'm done being lazy and refusing to question God for fear of getting on his bad side or somehow losing my identity as a child of God. I'm done feeling safe. This life of love isn't meant to be safe. I'm going to cling to Christ and his love, but I can't keep doing that while plugging my ears and closing my eyes. I can't stay locked up in my fairytale-box-faith any longer just because it's nice and easy and doesn't hurt to stay there.

I'm walking forward, I'm wrestling forward, hobbling forward with broken ribs or dashing forward with waving arms. I'm giving it all up to God, the kaleidoscope of praise and blessings, anger and questions. I can't give anything less, for then it's not truly myself. And it's my firm belief that God doesn't want us in fragments, but as we are, wholly, completely and fully in our intricate layers and loopholes. And that's when faith gets pretty terrifying, but incredibly beautiful. 

And Love smiles, come child. Don't be afraid. Come.