I have been a Christian for some time now and I am
struggling. Struggling with the whole
idea of how God wants to change us… to change me. How He wants me to grow and become more like
him. To be transformed and made
new. I mean, what does that look
like? How does that happen? What part do I play in that? What part does God play? So many questions. When I think about what my church experience
taught me about growth I think it can be boiled down to two different
things. Either 1-Try Harder or 2-Call on
Magic Jesus. Since trying harder
involves effort and work and lots of frustration, let’s talk about Magic Jesus
(I will write about Trying Harder in another Post).
If you have been a Christian for any amount of time the concept
of “Magic Jesus” will be easy to grasp.
It is this mystical Jesus who will makes everything new and wonderful
when you become a believer. Does anger
get the best of you more than you like? Wah-La! Magic Jesus will take it
away. Have a drinking problem? Presto! Magic Jesus takes away your desire to
drink. Depressed? Shazam! Magic Jesus
will make you happy. Can’t seem to be
responsible with money? No worries!
Magic Jesus will give you self control (or maybe He will “provide” money from
heaven so you can keep spending). You
don’t have to be around it very long to realize it is total bullshit. That it doesn’t work, no matter how hard you
try (believe me, I tried REALLY hard to get magic Jesus to take away my anxiety
and OCD but he never did). What is so
damaging about Magic Jesus is that you feel like there is something wrong with
you when he doesn’t show up. I mean, he
seems to show up for all these other people right? Why won’t he show up for me?
I have a very clear
memory of a Sunday morning nearly 20 years ago.
During our church service, a young man was allowed to stand up and share
a story with the congregation. He told
us all about how the night before, he and his friend had been praying. Apparently, his friend had a great deal of
emotional pain from her past that she was experiencing. As they prayed, God just took it all
away. All the pain. All the struggle.
Gone. And she was now a healed woman. Wah-la!
Magic Jesus strikes again. I
remember thinking two things that day. I
wondered what I was doing wrong and then I wondered how she was going to feel
when all the emotional pain came back and hit her like a truck.
Now, I know that Jesus can do miraculous things. I do.
I know he could take away and heal anything he wanted too. I just don’t think
it is the norm, more like the exception.
I don’t think Jesus came to just make life smooth and easy. I think he came to save us and set us free… from
ourselves. I think he came to show us
unconditional love and complete acceptance. To show us forgiveness and mercy in
a way we could have never thought possible.
I think He came so we no longer have to run and hide. I think He came so we could face our
shit. I am beginning to think that
growth actually comes from dealing with pain and difficulty. At least that has been my experience as of
late. This is where real growth and transformation can happen.
There is something amazing that happens when I allow myself
to look deeply at who I am. The good
stuff, the bad stuff. The beautiful, and
the ugly stuff. When I begin to realize
that I am deeply loved and accepted, just as I am. That Jesus already knows all of this about
me and is only opening my eyes to it. It
makes me understand Him in a whole new way.
And change can happen...in the core of my being. Because I am no longer trying get God’s
acceptance and love. I already have
it. It is complete and lacking
nothing. So, I can face whatever I find
lurking inside of me. Those things that
hide in the dark recesses of me that I am afraid to have exposed because who
could love me then? The stuff that I bury
down deep because it hurts too much to feel.
Yeah, all of that… I can face it now.
I don’t get all that with Magic Jesus though. I may get a quick fix but in the end I am
alone. That makes Magic Jesus kind of a
cheap Jesus to me. Kind of shallow and
empty. Even though it is harder, I think I would rather have the
Jesus that is willing walk through my shit with me and bring me to the other
side… a little more changed, a little more whole.
