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There are many things that I struggle with – questions I ask often.
All of the things I struggle with end up dealing with the ultimate question of am I doing the right thing. Am I offering the right advice? And the answer is – maybe, I hope so.
Being a pastor doesn’t mean I have all the answers, or many times, any of the answers. It means I sit with people where they are, in their situations that have no black and white easy answers. I sit with them in their gray situations and let them know that they are not alone and that God loves them. What else am I to do?
Having the answers often doesn’t even matter really. That’s not what most people are really seeking. They want to know that they are not alone in the world. The answers will come, or they won’t. But facing the world alone – that’s a scary prospect. Being alone – that’s terrifying for most people.
I struggle with the question of evil in the world – as many have before me and many will after me. How do you respond to evil? Do you fight evil and destroy it? Or by doing so, do you yourself become evil? Does the method determine the outcome?
I struggle with some of the things Jesus taught. There are things that I just want to scream about and some people who I would love to see punished for their actions and attitudes. Yet, that is not what Jesus taught. And if I am going to claim to be a follower of Jesus – well, then that means I have to give up those desires. To forge a different path – one in which I take up my cross and follow Jesus. And often this sucks.
I struggle with not being able to unsee the things I have seen and unhear the things I have heard. Once you see them and hear them, there is no turning back. There’s no going back to the way it was before. And they break your heart – over and over again.
Things like homelessness – homeless men and women and families, who live in their vehicles in a parking lot. Things like human trafficking and prostitution. Things like drug trade. Things like dehumanizing rhetoric and talk – certainly from politicians, but more disheartening is from “average” people you see on the streets. Things like domestic violence.
I struggle with how cruel humanity is and has been to itself for so many centuries. So cruel. And for what? What purpose? The cruelty makes no sense – yet it persists.
I struggle with people living in anger and fear. I struggle with people wanting to have all the answers – especially where answers are vacant. I struggle with people believing being right is the most important thing in the world. I struggle with loyalties to things that will not last.
I struggle with people not being open to conversation or challenging beliefs to discover the truth.
I struggle with people choosing comfort and convenience over following Jesus.
There are many things I struggle with. I ask God about these things every day. Why, Oh Lord, does this persist? How long Oh Lord will you allow this to go on?
But, regardless of the struggle and how long it grips me, I know I am not alone – Jesus walks with me. Jesus walks with me in the uncertainly and struggles of life. I know this because there is no way I could do this alone. It would be overwhelming. It would be too much.
I struggle, but Jesus is there. He struggles right along side. Actually, he’s been struggling for so very long. I’m new at this in comparison. It’s not even close actually. The weight of the world isn’t on my shoulders – it’s on his. I’m responsible for adding some extra weight onto his shoulders too.
And so as I struggle, I pray. I pray that the struggle will be worth it. That no one will be alone. That I can be an instrument of God’s mercy and grace. I struggle. But I am not alone. And neither are you.
Laced up Lutheran 
I struggle. I join you right there, wrestling the Angel til dawn, pinning him down, and he asks my name. And I have to tell him, Liar & Thief. And he blesses me, gives me a new nick name … “Struggles with God”. It’s my Indian name from God! And he blesses me but I walk with a limp afterward.
Yeah. I join you right there.
I have too many struggles to mention, but a couple that might resonate here:
I watched a documentary a while back (Netflx? Cant remember) and it followed the life of Osama bin Laden. And the think that really surprised me was how waaaaaay back in the 1980s he went to Afghanistan to join the rebels fighting Russia (yeah, we used to have this mutual enemy…) and while there, he saw the way war was destroying the children! And it moved him deeply. I threw his whole lot into the struggle then, and he had a fortune to spend on it.
Anyway, the truly ironic thing is how admirable his struggle was at the start but how evil it became – esp to American eyes. He stayed true to his cause, so he thought, and entered the fray valiantly even by my standards. This is not too different from Timothy McVeigh, btw. He too was moved by deep values most of us would share readily with him, but somewhere along the way that struggle led him to violate the lives of innocent people and children in a day care in the fed bdg in OKC.
Hmmm… let us be very careful with our struggles… huh?
I saw another documentary on Netflix a while back that analyzed the post war reaction to the Nazis in Poland and Germany once the death camps were discovered by the Allies. I knew that the Allies marched thousands of German citizens through the carnage to make them face what they had done, but I did not know that once iiberated, many of those forced underground during the death camps and Final Solution came out on top and began revenge killings an mass scales. I saw footage of hundreds of people – suspects rounded up without trial – lined up and shot much like the Jews had been only a month before, and then army trucks driving over the line of bodies to break the legs of any potential survivors to ensure they did not escape.
And this was the good people doing this!
My God… the struggle!
But you know what else… and this really came to light for me this morning during morning prayers…
I saw another documentary on Netflix about “the White Helmets”. If you have not seen it, look it up. It is a stunner! These angels of mercy rush into Aleppo and Mosul and war-torn cities in Syria (and Iraq too, I think) completely unarmed and save people from the rubble WHILE the bombs rain down on them! In fact, it has come out that the Russian fighter pilots recognize the white helmets from the sky, and they know the white helmets will come to the rescue, so they swing back around to target them too! And I think, Wow! Jesus! There YOU ARE in the midst of the struggle!
but then I have to stop and consider, those heroes are not Christian at all. They are as Muslim as the terrorists I so dearly hate and fear!
Hmmm…
I struggle.
I am right there with you, bro.
X
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Thank you for this. Your words touched me close to my heart. Oh how easy it is to rationalize using the methods of evil to triumph over evil – how easy it is to become the thing we try to destroy. Oh the danger that exists when we tell ourselves that we are doing what we do for good causes. Yet, Jesus offers a different way – a way to struggle, but not be lost to the struggle. Thank you brother for letting me know I am not alone in this struggle. You are not alone either. Let us pray for each other each day so we remember we are not alone.
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Wow! I am so glad that these words touch your heart, and YES, let us pray for one another.
Your post is timely for me too, actually. I have been struggling to formulate two different posts for a while now, and I attempted to start them a couple days ago, but I can’t get them to take shape in my mind yet. And now I think they are more related than I thought at first. Your post illuminates this for me and pushes me.
One post is about reconciliation. My reconciliation… with people I have opposed, believers I have opposed, and still oppose. And as I start to write, I suddenly go blank, almost like it’s a holy party that I am not worthy to attend. And I ache over that. But saying that in no way describes the post I have been aiming to craft.
Another post – or maybe a series even (I dread series, but sometimes there is so much to say that I cannot imagine doing the topic justice with 800 – 10000 words). anyway… the other one I am struggling with is the conflicts and hard sayings of Jesus (and St Paul too, btw). These towering biblical characters pick fights! They engage conflict head on! They don’t demur, they don’t hold back. Jesus actually preaches sermons “against” some people. He calls some people names! Even I consider such to be out of bounds, except Jesus does it. Hmmm… Just what did he think he was going to achieve when he turned tables in the temple? Did he think: These Jews are going to finally see God and make appropriate changes now that I have raised my voice and pitched my fit!??? How naïve is that??? So what was he thinking?
I believe he was thinking: I am calling out divine judgment on this place, and in doing so my own beloved will reject me, my message, and the God who sent me with it, but God will vindicate me, the message, and himself as he USES THEM to destroy me.
I think this is what he is thinking because this is what God does, and I think he saw that coming.
But when I throw a fit on behalf of JUSTICE, Godliness, or even Mercy, I keep thinking maybe, MAYBE, MAYBEEE!!! finally these idiots will get it and change. But that never happens. On the other hand, I could still throw the fit alright, but join Jesus in carrying that cross as part of the package.
And this is where bin Laden (and practically everyone who ever wears those shoes) misses the boat, I think. They see that justice, godliness, and mercy and all the good virtues they hoped for are not coming to fruition, and so they ratchet up the angst with a gun, a bomb, or some form of real violence in a last ditch effort to finally force the outcome they desire. And the problem is that whatever good there was in that agenda at the beginning is now turned into evil which is unleashed in the ether and ravages the world.
Jesus started similarly, it seems to me, but he ended in a different place, a place undeniably good. A result that began with a confrontation and ended in forgiveness. And I think the key difference in there in part at least involves his willingness to take the punishment on himself that was deserved by those he confronts, and then pronounces forgiveness.
Who wants to sign up for that?
I don’t.
But Jesus did…
Or maybe I am missing something. Hard to say. For certainly there is a moment, a rush even, in confronting the evil. Being right in the face of wrong! Wow! What a rush. But it gets lost in the fray so easy. And I am not immune to this. But I think I am seeing it, unless I am deluding myself. And I am stumped as to how to shape it into a post.
Perhaps you can…
Anyway, I am so glad to touch heart to heart and join you in prayer. The struggles you write of here regularly are dear to me too. And so it is good to know we are not alone. Trump “Christianity” is a sham and a shame, and I feel the sting of it daily and wonder how people can be so insanely stupid. I feel all that. And I think St Paul would call them STUPID GALATIANS. And somehow doing that does not violate the Fruit of the Spirit… But how – how does it not? And anyway, I am certain Jesus would hang there on the cross Trump Christians put him on and forgive them.
Hmmmm…
And I am in awe of that.
X
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Wow. I think you just did a blog post on the subject you were struggling with. I know for me, blog posts are really written for other people to read. They are written for me and what’s going on inside. I’m just amazing there are others who want to read what I write, or who have the same thoughts and feelings. Thank you again for sharing this X. Blessings to you.
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Blessed are those who mourn, my friend, for you will be comforted.
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Thank you Lily.
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Matthew, another excellent post. You said, “Being a pastor doesn’t mean I have all the answers, or many times, any of the answers. It means I sit with people where they are, in their situations that have no black and white easy answers. I sit with them in their gray situations and let them know that they are not alone and that God loves them. What else am I to do?”
I feel the same way, but when I was a fundamentalist many years ago I had pastors who felt they had the answers–all the answers. I learned to stay away from them.
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If we really had the answers, there wouldn’t be problems. That’s how I know these people don’t have the answers. They have opinions and suggestions couched as the answers, but they aren’t.
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Daily I struggle with being a good wife, a good mom, a good grandma and a good person. Temptation is always available as the devil is highly active. I am blessed though because I have a guardian angel, Jesus, God, Holy Spirit, Blessed Mother, St. Jude, St. Teresa, St. Margaret Mary and a host of others. I believe too that there are many folks out there praying for all us despite our faults. I believe too that those who have gone home are watching out for us too. Pastor Matt, please continue these blogs because they are extremely helpful and provide a way for me to reflect on my life and how I may improve it to serve Jesus. Thank you.
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Thank you for your comments and encouragement. Blessings to you.
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