A Matter of Life and Death

Most people view me as a positive person. "Dave, the friendly, outgoing guy." Some people who know me don't know that this has not always been the case. 

In fact, at one point I was quite the opposite.

tough questions i never though i'd ask

I had a hard time adjusting to college. Why? Well, it was my first major life change. I grew up in the same house, at the same church, and with the same high school classmates. Everyone knew me. I know how things around me worked. I was confident in who I was...until I moved to Chicago. I was excited to start off with a blank slate, but it turned out to be much harder than I expected. I was used to being a big fish in a small pond....but I got thrown in the ocean with a bunch of other big fish. It was a bit of a shock, and I didn't have the safety nets around me that I was used to.

I got placed into a peculiar group of people. My roommate, my neighbors, my ministry partners...well, they all were asking some tough questions. Really tough.

Like:
"Can we really trust the Bible?"
"If Christianity is true, then is most of the world lost?"
And the kicker: "Why does God allow so much evil if he could stop it?"

Let me just say, this became one of the darkest periods of my life. By the end of my sophomore year, I was asking these same questions myself. And God didn't seem to want to answer. So I fixated on the questions even more.

At this time in my life, I was not in a healthy place. My accountability partner was walking away from Christianity. I didn't have anyone to turn to. The questions kept nagging. And I became cynical.

the cynical life

If you've never been a full-blown cynic, this is what it's like: you feel like you're drifting in darkness. There is no happiness, no "wall" you can feel, nothing you can hold onto. You cannot trust anyone or anything: not academics or friends or sometimes even God. You doubt everything--every paradigm, every worldview, every source of authority, and every motive. Nothing is closed off from scrutiny, and virtually nothing stands up to it. In fact there is so much information out there to scrutinize that you feel you'll never get through it all. It's overwhelming. There is a tremendous weight on your shoulders, and you have nowhere to rest. You're miserable and there doesn't seems to be any relief in sight.
 
This is what it was like for me. I was a full-blown cynic.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for people to be around me. I wanted to be authentic and transparent, but I didn't know what that looked like, and I had no sense of "appropriateness" in what I shared with others. It must have been draining for them to entertain my questions, my critiques, my cynicism. My world was unbalanced, and my emotional boundaries were all out-of-whack. I was a wreck.

So how in the world did I work through all of that junk? How did God pull me out of such a deep darkness? He used one of the most explosive things I've ever been through:
a church split.

fallout: dealing with the aftermath of a church split

I'll save you the details of the church split, because--I'll be honest--I still don't completely know all the details. But half the people at my home church wanted the pastor (my dad) kicked out of the pulpit. The whole situation was surreal. I came home on summer break from my second year of college, and there was all this feuding going on between church members. These were people who I had known my entire life, and they were backbiting and spreading false rumors. Then, Father's Day Sunday in 2005, the church virtually blew up. In the middle of the service, people started shouting and name-calling. Tempers were flying. Others were crying. People started leaving. I have never experienced anything like that in my life.

It seems strange, then, that God would use such a heart-wrenching circumstance to bring me back to himself. Wouldn't I be turned off to God, after witnessing all of this chaos in his church? I'll be honest. It was difficult to see people I have known and loved all my life saying cruel and awful things about each other. The only word I can use to describe it was that it felt like darkness. 

And yet, in the midst of so much darkness, there were people who took a different route. I remember conversations with my dad where he wanted to set the record straight, he wanted to stand up for himself, and he wanted to expose people for what they had done to him and others. But through it all, he held back. He trusted that the Lord would defend him, and he served the Lord wherever he could. In the midst of being torn down, my dad kept loving people. And he wasn't the only one. While there were many people trying to smear mud, there were others who were trying hard to do the right thing, take the high road, love thy neighbor. 

And there it was before me. Darkness and Light. Death and Life. I could not see the two more clearly juxtaposed with one another. And that was where the Lord spoke to me.

two paths diverge

The Lord showed me that there were two roads I could follow: one leading to Death and one leading to Life. I--in my cynicism--was going down the road leading to Death. I wasn't there yet, but if I continued relentlessly asking the questions I was asking, keeping people out of my life, and neglecting my relationship with Him, I would be there soon. I would be like one of those in darkness around me, spreading the "culture of Death" everywhere I went.

But I had a choice. I could turn to the Lord and walk in the Light. The Lord could fill me with the fragrance of his Spirit and give me Life. I could take refuge in His love and find peace. Or I could continue hardening my heart toward him and walk the road that leads to Death. By the grace of God, He placed good people and books around me. He helped me journey out of that place of cynicism. He had rescued me from myself. Yet again.

God has brought me a long way. I am no longer in bondage to cynicism. At the same time, I have to be honest: I don't have all the answers I was hoping to find. 

Sometimes the questions come back. 
Sometimes I doubt. 
And that's okay.

If you read through the Bible, you often find people who doubt. In fact, many of the Psalms involve doubt. Psalm 13 starts,

"How long, oh Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?"

Hardly something we'd feel comfortable singing in church. But the Jews did. And maybe they were onto something. Maybe it's okay to admit our doubt. Maybe when we hold back our doubt and suppress it, it cheapens our worship. Maybe part of being honest with God involves being honest with ourselves.

But the Psalm does not stay there. In fact, the writer does a one-eighty,

"But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me."

The psalmist starts with his concern, his doubt, his burning questions. But here is the most important thing: he doesn't stay there. He lets go of his questions and entrusts them to God. He runs back to the only One who can save, the only Source of Life for our souls. At the end of the day, he surrenders.

Some say doubt is required for faith to exist. Others say doubt refines our faith. Maybe it's both. But I do know that it is okay to doubt...as long as you don't stay there. If you hold your questions with a tight grip and never let go, you will cut yourself off from your only Source of Life. You become cynical. You journey into darkness. 

At the end of the day, you must lay your questions before your Savior and rest in Him. Only he can give you true Life.