Christianity Unraveled

November 3rd, 2019

I was at church today – not my usual one, but the one that Andrew and most of his friends go to. Halfway through, I found it just incredibly difficult to concentrate and I had tears in my eyes because, well, I suppose I was mostly focusing on how I was going to have to leave Andrew soon, which was really upsetting. Every time we have to leave each other I hate it, but this time I especially did.

But as I think about it, that isn't why I was crying at church.
The truth is, I haven't been to church or church-like events in two weeks. To some, this may not seem like a long time, but for a person whose life used to revolve around attending church and other activities that were church related, it was a heavy realization to discover that I hadn't gone in that long. Why haven't I? The first time, I just wasn't feeling good and none of my friends were really going and it was cold out so I didn't want to walk over. (Plus, I didn't really want to go anyway). Last week, I was supposed to be on the worship team, but the night before my stomach was absolutely atrocious, and in the morning – even though my stomach was fine – I just couldn't will myself to be there.

So today, there I was, in church for the first time in a while. And though I may have been in the church, I didn't particularly feel of the church (maybe this is what people feel when they talk about being in the world but not of it).

But why? I wish I knew the answer to that age-old question of why. All I know is that I couldn't take communion today, though. It wouldn't have been right. Maybe it's because I don't feel right with God, or that I don't feel worthy to partake in communion with people and with God because then maybe it would change me into someone I'm not. I'm afraid that if I take it, then I would just be telling myself and others what I 'believe' and that this outward expression of my faith would just be that – an outward expression that isn't matched by an inward expression. That I would be the pharisee that Jesus talked about with having the appearance of being clean but having the reality of being dirty. A two-faced hypocrite. And I want to stop feeling like one. But more than that, I want to look and I want to search and I want to find answers that are real to me.

It seems to me that one of my greatest fears in life is ingenuity. I am afraid of being fake, I am afraid of others being fake, and I am afraid of what I experience as not being real. And I'm afraid that what I believe isn't real too.

But I can't search. I can't bring myself to do it. Every once in a while I will, but then as I do, more questions pop up that I can't answer that I thought I knew the answer of, and it feels like my life is an utterly fake expression of what I believe. And I want to believe, desperately. But I can't return to where I was before in the blink of an eye.

What do you do when you want to love something so deeply but you can't bring yourself to? What happens to your mind when there is this constant push and pull of wanting to be fully immersed in the church again and having pure joy in it, but being unable to bring yourself to let it happen, because you're afraid that it wouldn't be real? That the enjoyment in the love of God and that the worship of him in your heart would be absolutely fake?

Two halves of me are pulling both my sides to different ways.
Two halves of me are fighting and their force feels just the same –
All I want is one direction,
All I want is one decision –
But the more that I search, the more questions I find,
And the more that I ask, the less it declines.

I went to church today. And I listened to the message. But I didn't hear it. I heard the negatives that went through my mind. I heard my bitterness, I heard my anger, I heard my fear, and I heard what I think they were trying to say but I didn't want to listen. And so I listened to what I heard. And when I heard that God essentially told the Israelite nation that, "If I'm going to be in relationship with you, then you need to be holy," all I heard was conditional love. Not the unconditional love that is preached. I didn't hear that God sent Jesus to make people holy; I heard conditions upon conditions of love. I heard about a God that despises people who he created that have had no chance of being holy and thus we were all given no chance. I heard about a God that has favorites, and that the goodness of God was dependent on if he favored you over others, and that to the other nations, God wasn't good.

And thus I am left with a dichotomy that seems unresolvable; yet, I am inclined to believe that God is unconditional in his love (as I have been taught as long as I can remember). But how can he be unconditional in his love if his love quite literally has conditions?

Love brings about mercy, and mercy triumphs over judgement. If God is wholly perfect in love and judgement, then his love would overpower the judgement. Right?

Perhaps that is a thought for another day. It is far too late to be thinking of all of this, and I feel as though I have traveled on five to ten different paths in this stream of consciousness alone. And so I suppose I will end my journaling here: I was in church today, but I wasn't there – at least, not the I that I used to know.