Mark - I have enjoyed your writing for quite a while now. I don't know how this happens but I read 3 other email mediations regularly and they so often line-up on a given day that it seems somehow mystical. Here is the one that lined up with your thoughts today which I really appreciated yet found difficult to hear.
A Lenten Prayer
The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.
I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.
I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.
Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen.
Goodness Mark, another spiritual punch to the gut of things. I would like everyone from the tradition I walked away from to read this and seriously consider the consequences.
I can see why so many would have an immediate knee jerk negative reaction to the implication that we "resent God", as if that would somehow offend Him and cause us to lose Godly favor points. I think God can take it...
I guess if I could add anything from my own experience, I've found that most of what I get angry with and resent God for are my own mistaken expectations of who I want Him to be...and, unfortunately for my own selfish misguided desires, He is not.
Many, many times I've wanted Him to be the one that could sweep down from heaven and fix my problems. If not the external ones, at least come into my head and "transform" me into a happy at all costs Christian.
I've had to learn the hard way that that's not how He works or who He is; and showing me my error and the truth behind it is the most loving thing He could possibly do for me.
So, if the cost of truly knowing and loving Him is my traveling the road of resentment and more than a few, "to hell with it"s coming out of my own erroneous thinking, then so be it. To shed my own misguided beliefs of who He is in exchange for who He really is seems a small, if many times profoundly annoying, price to pay.
I have a bit of a different take on the subject of loving God ...
As a child who was raised in a strict conservative Christian home environment, I truly 'feared' God! I really believed I would be punished by God if I did anything wrong. I can honestly report that it is not possible to love anyone or anything that scares you to death! Thankfully, my mother was a Sunday School teacher who constantly emphasized the love Jesus had for everyone, especially children; ie, 'red, yellow, black or white; they're all precious in His sight.' As I matured, I eventually figured out that Jesus is God's Son & together w/God's Holy Spirit.that dwells within me, they comprise the Holy Trinity which loves me unconditionally even though I will never be a Holy Saint on earth
Another excellent one. The division is certainly real. I have always had a close relationship to this verse: Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates *even to dividing soul and spirit*, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
As far as I know (deceitful heart!), I don't resent God. My moment of watershed anger was some decades ago now. But He certainly is inconvenient for what I want to do many times.
So...I fully recognize how divided I am, both wanting Him and not at the very same time.
I just forwarded 8 copies to myself so that I do not lose track of your article - it gets to a much deeper truth about us than most of us are at all comfortable looking at. Ouch!!!!
I really struggle with this term of resenting God. I tried really hard to keep an open mind and heart to soak up what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to me. Some good words thank you. But I do not resent God. He is not the spoiler of my fun but my Redeemer, my Rock. This might be just me, and I’m happy to be corrected. It feels like you’re using a controversial statement to attract debate and challenge religious thinking. And that is fair. As long as the controversial statement is not used as a form of clickbait. I struggle I’m sorry. Can the same message be written without the term resenting God? I am not sure. And if it is, am I looking then for a message to please my ears. Again not sure.
I read and commented on your article last week and feel constrained to do the same this week. I agree we Christians, as a group, may want God to be our problem-solver, but the many Bible prayer promises, many by Jesus, lead us to expect he will answer any sincere and wanting-something-that-is-easily-considered-good prayer from his followers. Consider Lk 11:9-13, Matt 21,22, 18:19, John 14:13-14, 15:7, James 5:13-15. What are we to make of these broad promises and the dearth of positive answers we receive? What can we really pray for, then, and expect God to answer in the positive? This has surely led to frustration, exasperation, and on rare occasions for me and other believers I know--anger.
As you say, some of the problem is with us. You mention that some Christians (you too?) think God is too demanding, that God's request to "be holy as I am holy" is asking too much. Hmm--maybe your idea of holiness is not very close to God's. Could you be expecting more of yourself that God ever intended? That would be Satan's ploy, wouldn't it? Get us discouraged and thinking that we could never please God? So, I'm wondering where such a voice is coming from.
You next conclude that a relationship with God is "often shaped by hostility," and then link King David's betrayal of Uriah, Jesus' critique of serving God or wealth, our desire for material goods, and hating God? I'm sorry, but all those connections are very thin or nonexistent. How do you piece all those together? I missed it. Sin seems to be supremely "self"-centered; we're not hating God as much as thinking about what will make us happy or satisfy our desires.
Finally, you seem to think the answer is in God helping us to change our desires or wants. As far as I know, God has never promised to do that. Our desires are in our hands, not his. God doesn't ask us to "feel" towards him anyway, he asks us to "ultimately prefer" him. He asked us to obey, not feel like obeying. Sometimes I don't want to do something for my wife or to go the extra mile at work, but I do it anyway. Many times a good feeling follows. As the title of a book I once read stated, "Love is Not a Special Way of Feeling!"
So, in conclusion, I still don't get God's grand prayer promises and their lack of what I would consider reasonable fulfillment. I have to punt on any answer to the frustration many feel in relation to that. But the rest of your article on "resenting God" has a lot of weaknesses. If you resent God, tell him, and then go on loving and obeying him anyway. Find out what "holiness" God really expects of you. Finally, when I'm angry or frustrated at God, obedience is the only thing I can find to do that makes any sense. In the end he's God and I'm not.
Mark - I have enjoyed your writing for quite a while now. I don't know how this happens but I read 3 other email mediations regularly and they so often line-up on a given day that it seems somehow mystical. Here is the one that lined up with your thoughts today which I really appreciated yet found difficult to hear.
A Lenten Prayer
The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.
I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.
I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.
Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen.
-- Henri Nouwen, Road to Daybreak
Goodness Mark, another spiritual punch to the gut of things. I would like everyone from the tradition I walked away from to read this and seriously consider the consequences.
I can see why so many would have an immediate knee jerk negative reaction to the implication that we "resent God", as if that would somehow offend Him and cause us to lose Godly favor points. I think God can take it...
I guess if I could add anything from my own experience, I've found that most of what I get angry with and resent God for are my own mistaken expectations of who I want Him to be...and, unfortunately for my own selfish misguided desires, He is not.
Many, many times I've wanted Him to be the one that could sweep down from heaven and fix my problems. If not the external ones, at least come into my head and "transform" me into a happy at all costs Christian.
I've had to learn the hard way that that's not how He works or who He is; and showing me my error and the truth behind it is the most loving thing He could possibly do for me.
So, if the cost of truly knowing and loving Him is my traveling the road of resentment and more than a few, "to hell with it"s coming out of my own erroneous thinking, then so be it. To shed my own misguided beliefs of who He is in exchange for who He really is seems a small, if many times profoundly annoying, price to pay.
Carry on, brother Mark.
I have a bit of a different take on the subject of loving God ...
As a child who was raised in a strict conservative Christian home environment, I truly 'feared' God! I really believed I would be punished by God if I did anything wrong. I can honestly report that it is not possible to love anyone or anything that scares you to death! Thankfully, my mother was a Sunday School teacher who constantly emphasized the love Jesus had for everyone, especially children; ie, 'red, yellow, black or white; they're all precious in His sight.' As I matured, I eventually figured out that Jesus is God's Son & together w/God's Holy Spirit.that dwells within me, they comprise the Holy Trinity which loves me unconditionally even though I will never be a Holy Saint on earth
Another excellent one. The division is certainly real. I have always had a close relationship to this verse: Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates *even to dividing soul and spirit*, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
As far as I know (deceitful heart!), I don't resent God. My moment of watershed anger was some decades ago now. But He certainly is inconvenient for what I want to do many times.
So...I fully recognize how divided I am, both wanting Him and not at the very same time.
Kudos once again sir.
I just forwarded 8 copies to myself so that I do not lose track of your article - it gets to a much deeper truth about us than most of us are at all comfortable looking at. Ouch!!!!
Hi Mark
I really struggle with this term of resenting God. I tried really hard to keep an open mind and heart to soak up what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to me. Some good words thank you. But I do not resent God. He is not the spoiler of my fun but my Redeemer, my Rock. This might be just me, and I’m happy to be corrected. It feels like you’re using a controversial statement to attract debate and challenge religious thinking. And that is fair. As long as the controversial statement is not used as a form of clickbait. I struggle I’m sorry. Can the same message be written without the term resenting God? I am not sure. And if it is, am I looking then for a message to please my ears. Again not sure.
Let’s face it - we resent God - is not true.
I read and commented on your article last week and feel constrained to do the same this week. I agree we Christians, as a group, may want God to be our problem-solver, but the many Bible prayer promises, many by Jesus, lead us to expect he will answer any sincere and wanting-something-that-is-easily-considered-good prayer from his followers. Consider Lk 11:9-13, Matt 21,22, 18:19, John 14:13-14, 15:7, James 5:13-15. What are we to make of these broad promises and the dearth of positive answers we receive? What can we really pray for, then, and expect God to answer in the positive? This has surely led to frustration, exasperation, and on rare occasions for me and other believers I know--anger.
As you say, some of the problem is with us. You mention that some Christians (you too?) think God is too demanding, that God's request to "be holy as I am holy" is asking too much. Hmm--maybe your idea of holiness is not very close to God's. Could you be expecting more of yourself that God ever intended? That would be Satan's ploy, wouldn't it? Get us discouraged and thinking that we could never please God? So, I'm wondering where such a voice is coming from.
You next conclude that a relationship with God is "often shaped by hostility," and then link King David's betrayal of Uriah, Jesus' critique of serving God or wealth, our desire for material goods, and hating God? I'm sorry, but all those connections are very thin or nonexistent. How do you piece all those together? I missed it. Sin seems to be supremely "self"-centered; we're not hating God as much as thinking about what will make us happy or satisfy our desires.
Finally, you seem to think the answer is in God helping us to change our desires or wants. As far as I know, God has never promised to do that. Our desires are in our hands, not his. God doesn't ask us to "feel" towards him anyway, he asks us to "ultimately prefer" him. He asked us to obey, not feel like obeying. Sometimes I don't want to do something for my wife or to go the extra mile at work, but I do it anyway. Many times a good feeling follows. As the title of a book I once read stated, "Love is Not a Special Way of Feeling!"
So, in conclusion, I still don't get God's grand prayer promises and their lack of what I would consider reasonable fulfillment. I have to punt on any answer to the frustration many feel in relation to that. But the rest of your article on "resenting God" has a lot of weaknesses. If you resent God, tell him, and then go on loving and obeying him anyway. Find out what "holiness" God really expects of you. Finally, when I'm angry or frustrated at God, obedience is the only thing I can find to do that makes any sense. In the end he's God and I'm not.
We say, "I'm all in." Actually, we are ambivalent about everything important.