If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you're either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: "Can I believe it all again today?" No, better still, don't ask it till after you've read The New York Times, till after you've studied that daily record of the world's brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer's always Yes, then you probably don't know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you're human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that's choked with confession and tears and. . . great laughter.”
― Frederick Buechner
I met with an old friend today and amidst our conversation I was flooded with the reality of God's unconditional mercy and grace towards His creation. The journey of sanctification never ceases to remind me of how much has been sacrificed for the church as a whole and me as an individual. There are so many different things upon this earth that far exceed my understanding and even my imagination that I struggle deep within on God's purpose in it all; psychosis specifically and tragedy and sickness more broadly. I approach it with Him as a child would their father and questions flow between us. Mine are more of the "why" and "how" genre and His are more of the "who" nature. I refer to God's conversation with Job in Job 9:14-15, "How then can I answer Him, and choose my words to reason with Him? For though I were righteous, I could not answer Him; I would beg mercy of my Judge." Then in Job 38 when God responds to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know!" I love God's sense of humor in this verse because He is light heartedly making Job aware of the magnitude of difference between their positions and yet answering in love nonetheless. I realize the better question to ask is what is my role in all of this suffering and how can I serve and love most effectively according to His purpose and will.
How then Lord can I help my friend struggling with the things of the mind.. sanity, reality verses delusions, chaos and confusion? Most of theses things are far above my created nature to understand or even process and yet I know that you are the one who puts wisdom in the mind and gives understanding to the heart (job 38:36-37) I listened to my friend recount her story and I was reminded of C.S. Lewis' book "The Boy and His Horse." Toward the end of the story Aslan is talking with the boy and He says that he only discusses each person's journey (sanctification) with them and that we must ask the other if we want to know about their personal experience of the situation. I loved this idea because it just supports our need for one another as a body and that each of us gain a different understanding of God's character and holiness through our own personal experience. I am often guilty of putting God in a small box that I think I can explain and control, but today I realized He is far beyond what I could dream. He is the only one who has an understanding of reality and it is only through the blood of Christ that I am privy to that reality and spared from insanity. I have had many mentally ill patient's as a nurse and being of sane mind is something to truly value and be thankful for. So, although I have no greater understanding of the why's and how's I am a little closer to the who. "fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom". There is nothing more terrifying than the realization of how holy He is and how unworthy we are, and nothing more relieving of those fears then the understanding of who He is and what He has sacrificed.
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