I truly believe I have a relationship with God. And like any relationship, it takes work for it to grow. There is the work I’m responsible for of course, and there is work God is responsible for as well. But the hardest thing I feel arises in this specific relationship is the part about waiting on God to do God’s part of the work.
I’m sure anyone who’s ever walked a path of faith has faced this. And it normally seems to appear when a prayer to God has gone unanswered for a good while. Why that prayer has gone unanswered could be for an infinite number of reasons, but does that mean that God isn’t doing God’s part of the work to help the relationship grow?
The course one takes at a juncture such as this with God is different for everyone. Up until just a few years ago, I had a very limited window of how long I’d wait on God to do anything for our relationship. And when it didn’t happen in the time I thought it should, I always took matters into my own hands. In other words, I took control and attempted to do God’s work in our relationship as well.
What’s interesting is how similar this is to how I used to live my life with any of my other relationships. Take for example each of my previous partners. When they weren’t living up to how I thought the relationship should be growing, I either tried to force them into doing the work or I left them and moved on to someone else.
Ironically, I’m facing this very thing now both with God and my current partner. With my partner, he’s currently working on himself with things he’s put off for years and at times I’ve been on the receiving end of those areas he hasn’t worked on yet. This has only precipitated that old desire to try taking control over some aspect of his life. But anytime I’ve tried to, it really hasn’t worked out so well and only caused more hiccups in our relationship. In all actuality, that was true of each of the past times I did the same behavior in prior relationships too. Not too long ago, I began to realize the same thing ultimately holds true with God as well. After all, I have a relationship with God and anytime I ever felt God wasn’t doing God’s part of the work in our relationship, I’ve gone into control mode, which consistently only led to disastrous results.
The lesson I’ve learned through all this is who am I to say that God or anyone else for that matter isn’t doing their part of the work in the relationship I have with them. I’m not them, so I actually can’t ever fully know. There are things my partner surprises me with on most days, which constantly remind me that he is working on both himself and our relationship. The same holds true with God. Just because one of my prayers has gone unanswered for a good while doesn’t mean God isn’t working on our relationship, as I’ve seen plenty of other areas of my life where God has demonstrated God’s love for me.
So my conclusion is this. I think it’s better to keep waiting on God and continue believing God’s doing a tremendous amount of work to grow our relationship, rather than taking matters into my own hands. While there may be the one thing that has gone unanswered for years with God, even through all the hard work I’ve done to grow closer to God, I honestly still believe it’s better to keep on waiting, then forge another path that most likely is only going to end in nothing more than greater pain, frustration and doubt…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
One of the blessed lessons taught by my all-too-short time in seminary was a great gift: that every truly spiritual person – every spiritual writer, thinker, philosopher or teacher – has, at some point, gone through times of what St. John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul.” All the authors I’ve come to trust have done so – crying out in variations of “Where are you, Mighty One, when things BITE so damn hard?”
I found it fascinating that a number of Bibles omit Psalm 13, which starts out, “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” In ancient times, monks would not even transcribe that psalm, finding it to be blasphemous to question the will of God. (I’m glad my mis-understanding of God is one who accepts the whining, the complaining, and the recurring/periodic lapses of gratitude, and loves me anyway.)
And the experience of each of the women and men I’ve come to revere is that God (as they understand God) does not swoop in and magically fix the situation. The answer almost always is, “Yes, things pretty much gnaw, right now. But you are not alone in your grief, or your struggle. I am with you, and will not forsake you.”
Many times, it seems that message just is not enough to justify going on. But in the end, it always is.
I love your response Steve and the comfort it provided. I only pray my dark night ends soon and I hope very soon at that.