Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic FaithSample

God Knows How Ugly-Awesome Being Human Can Feel

Let me tell it straight. Thankfully, the world does not have to be ordered, perfect, evil-free, or even coherent in order for you to love and be loved. No amount of crazy can stop you from loving and being loved.

The problem is not that we are not loved. The real problem is that none of us believe it. Faith is the courage to love the fact that you are loved. The secret to faith is trusting that you are actually loved. When we suffer, we can’t escape the feeling that God has forgotten us. Even worse, we may feel God has left us.

Outlaw Christians who are serious about listening to Jesus’ story—especially the not-so-pretty theology of the cross—discover that it does not teach us as about God’s all-powerfulness. Instead, it reveals God’s willingness to be human, get hurt, and risk rejection in order to better understand us.

A God who understands that the worst thing about suffering for anyone who loves God is the dreadful fear that even the Divine has up and walked out on them, well, that is a God who gets it.

When life is crap and you feel abandoned by everyone you know, God understands you (the cross). When your friends fall asleep on you, betray you, and act as if they don’t even know you, God knows what this feels like (Peter). When your friend dies the second you leave town and you did not get to say good-bye, and all you can do is sob even if you do believe he will live again, God has felt the same way (Lazarus). God knows how ugly-awesome being human can feel, all right.

The cross does not signal to us that our suffering will soon stop or even become meaningful, but instead offers hope that it might someday come to be redeemed in spite of its possible meaninglessness. I believe the only meaning—if we can even call it that—found in deep suffering may well be that we are not alone in it. I believe God is present whenever and wherever we suffer, God’s face sitting right there in the pile of manure life has dropped in your lap. I believe that God’s presence can comfort. “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13).