Playing with God

In the past few months I have not been shy about the fact that I am disappointed in God.  So disappointed that I have often felt that He can not exist, does not love me, or is not a diety who is actually involved in our lives.  And I still cycle through these feelings on my bad days.  But I am having fewer bad days and continue to put a lot of effort into my "grief work".  I feel as if there is a healing happening, although I am not now, nor do I ever expect to be, healed from Maddie's death.

I have read many books, articles, interviews, and blogs these past months.  I have spent countless hours chatting, talking, writing and thinking about all of the hurt in this world and how it is possible that my God could allow any of it to happen.  This morning is my first real breakthrough after all of this hard work and I plan to share it as best as I can.

I finally came to the conclusion (with the help of CS Lewis) that i did not know my God at all and it was time to start over in our relationship.  Time to challenge some of the common and modern Christian notions (especially the ones that never sat well with me) and tear them down only to rebuild my relationship in stone.  If you have been a regular reader of my blog, you have heard all of this before.

I am not going to spend too much time putting everything into context.  If you feel like you need more context, I suggest you read a Grief Observed by CS Lewis and Tracks of a Fellow Struggler by John Claypool.  If you are not a Christian reading this, I hope my words will help remove some of the resentments you must have against us.  And if you are a believer, I do hope I don't offend but also challenge you to explore your own relationship with God on a deeper and new level.  I will try to remain true to biblical principles (although I admit my understanding is still weak) and not to blaspheme (although this may be a matter of perspective).

There are several modern and common Christian "truths" that I am going to call out now.  I believe they are false.  Not lies, but not complete truths - a term I learned a lot about at West Point - equivocation. I don't pretend to have any complete truths either, but do hope to stumble my way closer to the "truth". I will list them now and then address them one by one.

1. We are called to worship God without ceasing.
2. Without God, we are sentenced to eternal damnation.
3. Anything that separates us from God is sin.
4. We need Jesus for our salvation.
5. We are called to mold ourselves into His likeness so that we witness and spread the light.  This is what the commandments are all about.
6. The bible and prayer are the only ways to know God.
7. you have to go to church
8. Why is there evil?  Why did all of that stuff happen in the Old testament?
9. What did Maddie die?


Hang with me my friends.  One ancient and common truth is that we are God's children.  This I wholeheartedly agree with.  I also believe wholeheartedly that life is a gift from God.

Time to debunk some of the above half-truths:
1. We are called to worship God without ceasing.
I often give gifts to the children I love.  And nothing makes me happier then to see them play with my gifts as if it is the most wonderful thing they have ever encountered.  I recently gave Dillan a small leapfrog computer and he spends hours on it every day.  He tells everyone he meets about his new computer.  It makes my heart sing.

Life is our gift from God.  We are to treat it with gratitude. We are to maintain it, indulge it and love it.  Just as it is hard to watch a group of children laughing and playing tag without smiling, it should be impossible for us to fully live our lives without our heart singing out to God in thanks. 

The idea that God would create millions of people to sit around all day and remind him of His wonderful and great and powerful character is lame.  I image Luke's godson following me around all day worshiping and mimicking me.  I imagine it would take about 2 hours before he was on a plane back to the east coast with a note that said "never again".

But now imagine God in heaven watching all of his children loving this wonderful gift he's given us.  Laughing, sharing it with one another, working together to fix it when it breaks, finding new ways to love life.  That is a God i can relate to.  That is a God i can understand and love.

2. Without God, we are sentenced to eternal damnation. 
Being without God is like a child who never plays.  This child isn't damned.  But as a parent, I know that play is an essential part of my relationship with Dillan.  It is something I greatly mourn in Maddie's life.  There is not necessarily damnation without God, but you do miss out on this one very important and amazing part of life. Just as Dillan may not be in a mood in which we are able to play together, I would never forsake him for it.  I would just wait until he is ready again.  As many times as necessary and however long it takes.

3. Anything that separates us from God is sin.
Just as I don't have the luxury of playing happily with Dillan for hours on end, neither does God have the luxury of watching me fully live life 24/7.  Sometimes, I'm just not that into my gift.  Sometimes I abuse it.  Sometimes I purposefully break it or try to break someone else's gift.  Sometimes I take it for granted, forget about it in my closet or throw a fit when my gift isn't doing more then I want.  These things are sin my friends.  Sin is when we stop loving life, stop appreciating our gift from God or think others have better gifts then us.  These things may separate us from God as well. 

4. We need Jesus for our salvation.
I love my dad.  He is a great dad and a wonderful grandpa.  But he is also a single man in his mid-50s.  He does not regularly play with small children.  But when he comes to my house, he plays non-stop with Dillan and all of our little playmates.  He gets down on the floor, creates new games, laughs and has the patience of a saint.  Without Dillan, this kind of play with a stranger's child would not be possible without it being really weird and probably inappropriate.  Jesus is this bridge for each of us.  By making friends with God's only begotten son, we can play nonstop with His father without any barriers.   If we chose not to be friends with Jesus, we inhibit our ability to play with God and, again, fail to fully appreciate the gift of that is life.

5. We are called to mold ourselves into His likeness so that we witness and spread the light.  This is what the commandments are all about.
I can think of nothing I want more in this world then for Dillan to grow up and remind me of Luke.  I married a great man and would be proud to have Dillan emulate him.  The same is true of God.  We learn his character and seek his ways because he has set an example for us that will help us be kind, loving, well rounded people.  That will help us learn to love our gift and play with Him with gratitude.  The greatest commandant - to love God above all others and to love our neighbor as ourselves - is all about playing nicely.  Most of my favorite memories of friends and family involve playing for hours and being silly, laughing like loons.  Having enough in common and understanding how to best interact with one another allows for this kind of fun. 

6. The bible and prayer are the only ways to know God.
Imagine if I called you every morning and we talked about the exact same thing at the exact same time.  And we finished each call with me telling you everything that needed to change in the world and expecting you to spend the day fixing it.  then i said a quick "i love you bye" and hung up.  That would not be fun, would not be a friendship and would quickly turn into a toxic relationship filled with disappointment on both sides.  This is how most Christians spend their quiet time with God, at least as far as I know.

Every night, my son crawls into my arms and we read stories together.  He asks me a million questions and I do my best to answer them.  This is why we read the bible and pray.  To crawl into his lap and rest for a while.  to learn what it feels like to have his arms around us, smell his smell, learn his breathing and read his stories.  We learn more about him this way and him about us.  We can ask him a million question and he will do his best to answer them.  We can squirm and drift off and turn the pages too soon.  We can whisper silly things to Him or tell him about our day once the books are done and we are cuddling in the dark.  We can just feel his arms around us and feel safe.  In addition to play, this is how children bond with their parents.  He gives us His word and the power of prayer to be close to him, to be vulnerable with him.  But these are not the exclusive ways to spend time with him. 

7. You have to go to church
You don't.  But church (and it maybe a church you have yet to find) is a weekly family reunion.  It is where we can all come together and play with God and our siblings, including Jesus.  It is where we find experts to help us fix our gift of life when we break it.  It is where we become experts to help others (not just within the church family) that need help fixing their broken lives.

8. Why is there evil?  Why did all of that stuff happen in the Old testament?
I don't know. "There is a more honest faith in an act of questioning than in the act of silent submission, for implicit in the very asking is the faith that some light can be given" (Tracks of a Fellow Struggler by John Claypool).

So many things in our history are nonsensical, both small and large. The crusades, the holocaust, disease, murder, hang nails, and stubbed toes.  Without God, not only are we not able to play with him and fully enjoy this gift of life, but horrific things exist along side miraculous things for no purpose.  All is just random and luck and chance.  No silver lining, no cause, no light.

But with God, I can ask why. I can ask why all day every day and know that I honor Him by asking and that one day there will be an accounting for these things.

"I am really honoring God when I come clean and say, "You owe me an explanation." For, you see, I believe God will be able to give such an accounting when all of the facts are in, and until then, it is valid to ask" (Claypool again, I love this guy).

9. What did Maddie die?

I don't know.  But I do know that babies with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia were not meant for this life and that any of them survive past delivery is a miracle of modern medicine (a fact I firmly believe has God's handy work all over it).  So each minute of the 34 days with her was a miracle.  Each moment of our pregnancy with her is a miracle.  She is a gift from God.  Dillan is a gift from God.  And not necessarily gifts from Him to me and Luke.  That is part of the truth and I don't know the rest of it yet.  But their lives are Gifts directly from God to them.  Much different gifts, enjoyed by them in much different ways.  I will spend the rest of my life learning about their gifts as well as my own.

I take great comfort in the fact that every moment of Maddie's gift was full of unconditional love and devotion.  I can't say that is true of Dillan's life, even though he is so young.  But Maddie never knew a moment separated from the watchful eyes and loving care of her family and her medical team.  That fills my heart with such joy and gratitude.

I will close with this final idea.  For the most part, I am relearning  God primarily through analogies.  I have always thought, learned and understood most things through either direct experience or through analogies. You have to live life to understand analogies.  The more fully you live life, the more analogies you understand.  I believe God does this on purpose.

"What God was trying to teach...throughout his whole existence was the basic understanding that life is a gift - pure, simple, sheer gift - and that we here on earth are to relate to it accordingly." (you guessed it, Claypool again.)