christianitease

"I searched for God, No answer came
Just the victim of dying love
Take my sins away..."
-Aiden, ReEvolver

Sometimes, it feels like Christianity is nearly unattainable.  One of the biggest goals in the religion is to be Christ-like, which includes being kind to everyone, including friends, neighbors, even your enemies.  It's really all about being humble and showing love to everyone.  And for me, someone who pretty much dislikes people as a whole, someone who doesn't believe in love anymore, this is problematic.

I don't want to act like I've seen the worst humanity has to offer because I know that is not the case but I have seen a lot of rude and disrespectful people in my time.  Working in retail, I see it every single day.  I know it might sound silly to develop an opinion on mankind based on discourteous customers but it really does add up over time.  It all comes back to my paper cut concept, how small annoyances or missteps don't seem like a big deal when dealt with separately.  It's only when it all builds up within you, stacking sickness upon setbacks until it swells into insanity.  And in retail, you really see how selfish, rude, uneducated and unwashed people can be.  It doesn't help that my fellow employees are just about as bad as the customers.  And while one bad person can ruin my day, a collection of crass (and oftentimes crusty) customers can ruin my entire outlook.  It would be different if I had a rude interaction every once in a while but it is all day, every day.  I'm pretty sure that will wear on anyone after a while, no matter how cheerful they believe themselves to be.

Yet, God, and my employer, command that I be nice to these people, that I treat them with kindness and respect, although they ignore my greetings, destroy my perfectly folded shirts and berate me when they aren't given the type of discounts they believe they are entitled to.  And I am nice in the face of their fury.  But I don't like it.  I wish I could call people out on their nasty behavior, put them in their place and even give them a good smack, something to rattle them out of their rudeness.  But I can't and it probably wouldn't make a difference anyway.  All of this is coming after a tragic time in college where my perceptions of people were originally shattered.  Now, those broken perceptions are ground into my face daily.

It's hard to look an a-hole in the eye (no pun intended) and be generous.  Yet, that's what we are supposed to do.  But it's easier to be negative, to be rude and hateful and angry just like everyone else.  It almost feels natural.  And in a way, I suppose it is.  We all fall short of the glory of God.  We are all born sinners.  It is who we are.  As Christians, we are constantly told we are only worthy of hell and it is through God's grace that we are given the chance at heaven.  So, we are forced to go against the ungrateful grain and be gracious instead.  And through it all, Jesus promises to make it all better in another life.  Your human life will most likely always suck but your heavenly soul will find peace.

It's kind of strange because you're told to spend your life denying yourself and loving your enemy and although you may not find this lifestyle easy, you're working toward something beyond yourself, something incomprehensible and amazing and yet we will never know how amazing it will be.  That is, if we even earn our place in heaven.  Sure, you can say a prayer and give it all to God but is that enough?  We are never given a glimpse of that promised prize, never know if all our efforts will be worth it.  We are only told if we don't abide by the rules, we will only suffer more in hell.

On Earth, barely any thing is black and white.  Barely any one person is black and white.  Good people do bad things and bad people sometimes show mercy.  Yet, when it comes to your soul, it's pass or fail, stop or go, do or die.  It seems a bit harsh, doesn't it?  It's not even so much about being a good person as it is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  But, a part of that relationship is being a good person so I think it still does play a big part in acceptance into heaven.  You can't be a curmudgeon Christian.  And you can't be an amiable atheist (of course you can but as far as heaven goes, it doesn't help your chances).  

I think it's easy to be a Christian when you don't face much adversity.  I have an acquaintance who is a strong Christian but she's also had it easy her entire life.  Obviously, she might have faced problems I'm not privy to but let's just say she has not.  It's pretty easy to have faith when you don't have to struggle for it.  And just to play devil's advocate (pun intended), I have another acquaintance who is a strong Christian but life has constantly crapped all over her.  So, I suppose it is possible to keep the faith while failing at life.  So, where does that leave me?  Pretty sure that means I'm just a selfish jerk.

It all feels like this big tease.  Life's cruelties are so easily dismissed as just the world we live in but God is waiting on the other side to sweep us up, dry our tears and set us in a warm bath called heaven.  God is so good.  God is so gracious.  God is loving.  God won't turn His back on the believers.  Yet, I've never experienced any of that goodness firsthand.  You could argue the fact that I'm not poor or out on the street as proof of God's goodness.  And I can see how you'd say that.  But what about free will?  Free will is also a big part of Christianity.  God loves us but if he forced us to love Him it wouldn't truly be love so He gave us the free will to choose or reject Him.  So, what if everything good in my life was a product of free will, the choices of others, random chance?  It seems pretty convenient that a lot of Christians pass off good fortune as God's blessing and misfortune as the consequences of free will.  And I think it's a cop out.

Feeling God's existence is something I've struggled with my entire life.  Even when I was at my Christian best, praying and reading/studying my Bible, going to church and sending out positive energy to the world, I always felt the same sadness scouring my insides as they always had.  And I prayed for salvation every night.  And although I went through the motions and tried to seek God sincerely, I never felt Him, never felt like He had entered my heart, never changed me.  I've heard that because I might not feel God the way others do doesn't mean He's not with me.  That's all nice and good but what if he's not with me?  I can't go through my life on an assumption, especially when my very soul is at risk.  I need some confirmation.

And then college happened and everything suddenly spiraled downward at an alarming pace.  I kept God close.  Maybe not close enough.  I graduated and came back home to no job, no money and no friends.  Some of the most important people in my life disappeared and I completely cracked under the weight of debt and failure, fell into an element of blank and died.  And yet I prayed and asked for God's help.  And, as always, nothing.  Finally, I gave up because I felt like it was a waste of time.  Of course, I understand God doesn't answer all prayers.  I understand God's not going to drop gold on my doorstep.  I understand that God will not make life perfect.  Please, I'm not that delusional.  Yet, I always hoped God would at least give me a sense of peace, a semblance of calm as a sign that everything would eventually work out.  I wasn't asking for the world, just a word, a gesture of encouragement, a feeling of being full instead of that incessant emptiness that has plagued all of my years.  I really just needed a "hey, you're gonna be okay, kid."  And I couldn't even get that much.

I'm only complaining.  I know that God still loves me.  I know I'm being selfish.  I know it's not His fault but mine.  I know I'm probably not trying hard enough, being persistent enough or having enough faith.  I can just hear all those stock Christian responses right now.  And I'm not saying they are wrong.  I'm just simply saying how I feel about things, how my life hasn't fit in with that Christian mold of prayers and peace.  I'm just saying that it shouldn't feel like it's that hard to talk to God, to ask for some peace.  Why does it feel like I'm constantly running through this obstacle course that continues to add pillars and pitfalls to postpone my progress?

At work, some people set up a church next door to my department.  The company I work for is separated by the rest of the mall by a giant glass sliding door. Is it just me or is a mall a weird place to have a church?  Not that there's anything wrong with that but I guess I just don't picture consumerism and Christianity jelling like that.  Anyway, we always close the mall door on Sundays because no other store in the mall is open (except now for the church).  During my most recent Sunday at work, I looked into the mall and saw the churchgoers outside, some going in, some coming out, others standing around and talking and smiling outside.  A teenage girl was swinging a younger girl around with her hands.  I could hear the muffled giggles.  And as I looked through the glass, I thought it was an appropriate scene, quite literally reflecting my spiritual struggle.  Here I was, miserable, put to work in a hopeless job and on the other side of me was that promise of peace, that vision of what I thought Christianity should look and feel like for me.  There was happiness there.  Community.  And there was a wall that separated me from it.  I could see it and hear it but I could not touch it.

I was closed off from it all.