Talking to God

It seems to me, the more I grow as a Christian, as a man, as a friend, as just a person in general, the answers we struggle the hardest to get and the solutions we fight for most are the most obvious. When we get them, we suffer a moment of 'Naw-duh, Sherlock,' and that can make us/me feel stupid and embarrassed, but I think it's something we all have in common.

This blog post has the potential to get very personal with a lot of people, but for the sake of anonymity, I suppose it would be polite for me to be as vague as possible while still having some sort of meaning without sounding like I'm a whiny teenager. Ooh, boy. Specifics aren't important anyway, hah.

I'll begin with a question: Have you ever been in a situation where you had no where to turn to for help? I know what you're thinking. 'I ALWAYS HAVE JESUS, HALLELUJAH - AMEN!'

While that's true, be honest - how often do you turn to God for help? That's what I thought. An embarrassingly small amount of the time, isn't it? I can say the same. Whenever something's got me down, or worse... I can honestly say that sometimes God is the last place I will turn for help.

It seems odd to say that, though. Usually, outside of Christianity, we see people only going to God when we need help, but I bet for a lot of us, as Christians, it's easy to maintain a regular prayer life filled with ins-and-outs, daily 'quiet-times' (sweet child of mine, I hate that term), and what have you, but I find myself never really going to God with my problems or... I guess my heart.

I wrote a little bit about this a few weeks back - about opening up to God. I think that is a major part of it. I haven't been nor have I really ever opened up to God, and I find that when I do, He is able to show me things I'd never expected or things I'd never thought of otherwise.

In the past few months, I've been struggling pretty badly with... life, hah. Things got pretty low at one point - they still continue to drop down there now and again. It got to the point where I was physically hurting myself because, you know, apparently that's supposed to help. It didn't. My doctor put my on antidepressants which have helped a tremendous amount, but still... it doesn't fix anything.

So, I figure I could turn to people. My pastors. My family. My closest friends. I've opened up very little to anyone, and when I do, I find myself stuttering, censoring myself, and never really even releasing a coherent thought. Even talking to the people I love most (they can tell you this and are probably reading this now, hah), I'm very secretive, cryptic, and quiet about what goes on in my own heart.

And pretty soon, I found myself in a situation where there was nobody I could talk to. At all. Don't get me wrong - without a doubt in my mind, God places people in our lives to hold us up, pray for us, talk to us, and help us... but what about when we find ourselves going there first? Instead of having people there as pillars of support, I found myself treating them as a foundation of it.

So, in this situation, I found myself getting deeper and deeper into confusion, pain, sadness, and numbness. What was I supposed to do? Recently, it got to the point where I was, literally, angry at God. You know, like the cheesy Christian movies where the protagonist is like 'God, why did you allow this to happen! It's your fault! BLAH!' But I was basically like that.

'God... why are you even allowing this to happen to me? Why... in all of your ability as God and Ruler of the freakin' Universe, would you allow these little things to line up so perfectly that not only are my feelings hurt and my heart in shambles, but I have no one to talk to about it? Why on earth would you allow me to be so alone here?''

That's when I had my 'Naw-duh' moment.

And it's pretty much a recurring theme in the Bible, especially the Psalms.

"Seek the Lord and His strength; seek his face continuously." (Psalm 105:4)

"Those who know your name trust in You; for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you." (Psalm 9:10)

"Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken." (Psalm 55:22)

"In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened; he saved me from all my troubles" (Psalm 34:6)

I think that's what He was trying to tell me. I think God allowed me to fall so deep into this literal depression so that I could see, sooner or later, that the only - the only - way out would be to rely on Him.

The Enemy, of course, was hell-bent (pun intended) on making sure that I felt everything that ever happened to me was the result of my surroundings and not the way I was choosing to deal with them. Think about it - if I break my arm accidentally doing something, who do I go to for help? The people I love? They can comfort me and give me advice, sure, but does that heal me? Do I just go through it alone? No, because my arm would remain broken, wouldn't it? I need the doctor, don't I?

It's a simple, Elementary school analogy, yeah, but it's what I've been doing. Does going to God first with my heart, my troubles, my concerns, my everything fix the situations I'm in? No, not necessarily. There's still going to be pain because the attacks of our most relentless Enemy do not stop because we notice him performing them.

I think the most important thing for us... and me, really... to remember is that God is Father, and I am his son. He wants me to come to Him, because he loves me, and is willing to help me. He's willing to just listen if that's all I need. How many times has that happened to you - you're talking something out to someone, and they say nothing at all but continue to let you talk because they know you'll eventually come to the conclusion yourself? I think God does that a lot with us.

The bottom line I want to say is the God listens, and God helps. Sometimes, He allows absolute crap to pour into our lives from every direction so we see that there is no one else that can really help us but Him.

Questions for you now: How much do you trust God? I mean 'trust' in the sense can you really tell him everything, like a best friend... like a Father the Bible says He is? Can you be open to God? He did everything in His Power (and the God of Eternity has a lot of power) to be with you; can't you spare more than a campy ritualistic 'quiet time' with Him? It's something to think about.

As I pray today, I ask that you join me in really just going to God and opening your heart. Forget 'praying,' sit down and talk with God like you have a relationship with Him. That's what Christianity is, and we often tell people that, but act like we don't believe it. 'It's not a religion; it's a relationship!' we'll glibly spew along with every other Christian cliche, but we still pray like God is a stained-glass window image in the cathedral of our mind. I think he deserves and wants more than that. I think I want more that that.

So, try it today. Talk to God. Tell Him about your day. About what makes you happy. About what makes you sad. About how much you love your friends. About how much you liked that movie you saw. About that nasty food you ate at the mall the other day. Be reverent, but fod God's sake, be personal. God is a person. A person who loves you.

Pray for me, too, reader, as I learn this with you.

-Matt