I Get it. It Looks Stupid.

Trying to be Christian is hard. I understand why so many people abandon the effort every day. Professing such a belief is not for wimps, and more and more it seems it is just about impossible to meet the criteria. The social pressure against it is palpable to all five senses. Who knew?

Sadly, what most critics don’t understand is that those professing, and TRYING to live the life have probably had more external and internal fights than the quitters have ever even imagined. They’re not professing because they are too dumb to find a better way, because in their limited intellectualism they need to reach for a magic spirit in the sky. For the most part, they’ve spent years rebelling against the hypocrisy and the unfairness of the doctrine which SEEMS to exclude wide swaths of the population, and might even condemn close friends. They have sought so many other paths before reluctantly returning, or coming to the faith for the first time from some other belief system. It is very strange, indeed.

More than once, I’ve heard the argument that Jesus is just pure love, that all you must do is just love him. By extension, I’ve also heard that you don’t even have to attribute universal love to Christ or to God, just DO it and your innate righteousness is enough. Enough for what?

But, there is also the warning about being a “luke-warm” believer, with the command that you must be on fire for God or just plain cold, that anything less than on fire is unacceptable. Who can maintain that? And then there are all those commandments that we are called to live by, God’s standards rather than our own. But honestly, some of them seem easier to keep than others. And even those we claim are not hard to follow are easy to “qualify.”

We can say it’s easy not to commit murder. All you have to know is that killing in self-defense does not qualify as murder. Okay. How about coveting? That seems to be more of a thought or desire than an actual act. Stealing is an act, but WANTING something that belongs to someone else, if you don’t ACT upon it, how is THAT a sin? Those thoughts just creep up on us and we feel that if we toss them out without action we are just fine. Just do not DO it!

Do not steal. Is protecting something you have earned from being stolen by a government that is not responsive to you REALLY “stealing?” That is, if you don’t report every penny you find on the ground in a parking lot to the IRS… seriously… how rabidly will we be judged?

I think one of the hardest commandments for many adults might come under the flag of adultery. How specific IS that definition? Is sex outside of marriage when neither participant is married “adultery?” Is divorce and remarriage unforgiveable? I guess that if the foundational intent is to safeguard and sanctify “marriage,” then just about everything outside of it is wrong. Ouch!

I am TRYING to be a good Christian, but I have to say, not only have I fallen short on a daily basis, but for some of these things I can say, “Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt – HECK, I designed and MARKETED the T-shirt, and still have several on the shelf that I could sell you!”

Marriage. I will always say “There is nothing better than a GOOD marriage, and nothing WORSE than a bad one!” I know it is something that must be WORKED at, but is it meant to be an endurance test to the bitter end?

I had two grandmothers who were widowed longer than they were married. While MaMa loved to flirt, and after a respectable number of years in mourning would have welcomed an appropriate suitor, one never appeared. Grandmother, on the other hand, had a wealthy and persistent suitor whom she refused to marry. In my 30s I asked her why she refused his offer of marriage. She scoffed and said, “Why would I want to take care of another old man? This way, I can tell him when it’s time for him to go home!” Now, I understand her!

I’ve had two marriages myself. I couldn’t understand why I could never make the first one work, despite how hard I tried for sixteen years, why I was constantly devalued even when, in public, he could muster the right words. It was years after the divorce that I understood the nature of narcissism. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to make that relationship survivable when one of the parties is a narcissist. It CANNOT be done! Maybe if BOTH are, a sham relationship can be worked out, but I doubt that. There are pairings which people get into out of simple ignorance and trust that turn out to be Hellish. Does God really expect us to honor those relationships, or can the injured party honestly declare that the other has broken the agreement so many times that it has simply disintegrated?

I find that situation to be hard to ask for forgiveness. In fact, I have given THANKS for the opportunity to leave it behind and allow a better opportunity to find me, even if it is to live alone for the rest of my life. Does failing the marriage test mean you can’t be a Christian?

I enjoyed a very loving second marriage. But now, as a widow I can complain about some imperfections there. We were happy to put up with each other, each giving the other enough personal space to flourish as individuals as well as half of a pair. Now, I am faced with the challenges of widowhood. And some of those challenges are stupidly imposed by other people.

Our culture is happy to role with “friends with benefits” relationships. I just do not role that way and I am very uncomfortable with men who can’t understand that. Whether it would be unchristian or not is not my main issue. I plain do not WANT to invite just ANYBODY into the most intimate portions of my life. That would be an invasion. If I never find another soulmate to share that kind of intimacy with, so be it. I have known the enjoyment of shared love.

But this is just my personal bugaboo. We are told that God will forgive us our transgressions if we contritely ask him to. That is really at the heart of Christianity and it is called “grace.”

But, I’ll tell you what, it’s very hard to feel genuine contrition for some things I’ve done or continue to do, when in my mind I can justify making those choices. So, I get it, thoroughly. How much easier it is to throw out the whole concept of God, Jesus, and accountability to one who supernaturally reigns above us. It is so much easier to throw up your hands and say, “Phooey! It’s all bologna! I’ll just do the best I can figure out and all will be well.”

Yep. That’s easier. Then, why do so many hold on to a spiritual “contingency plan?” They go to Church or Synagogue, or meditate religiously, but privately admit that they don’t know if they really believe.

I am reminded of the secret to success, that the failure is the person who tried once or twice and gave up while the successful person kept trying and failing over and over and over again until at last, he succeeded. Maybe faith is like that. Maybe all those Christians who are being maligned are failing their way to success while the maligners just plain quit.