and put away your indignation toward us.
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Will you not revive us again,
so that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your steadfast love, O LORD,
and grant us your salvation. Psalm 85:4-7
Some people assume that pastors don't struggle with faith the same as "ordinary people," but of course that's not true. I would never had gone to seminary at age 35, creating great stress and difficulty for my wife and two small children, had I not had some very vivid and moving encounters with God. I've had others since then, but I've also had times, far too many times, when I felt a bit like the psalmist. I've not really thought of it so much as anger as absence. If feels as though God has hidden Godself from me, and I long to be revived by the encounter with God's love and grace once more.
I've often wondered about this problem, and I know I am far from alone in experiencing it. The reasons for it are likely many, but today's devotional by Richard Rohr caused me to reflect on what may be one facet of the problem. Fr. Rohr referenced the writings of a hospice worker who had observed that it was often religious people who seemed most frightened of death. Rohr was not at all surprised, He noted how often religion causes people to be afraid of God, saying, "Why wouldn’t you be? Until we clear away the idea of hell, it is not a benevolent universe, but a hostile and dangerous universe where an angry god does not follow his own commandment about love of enemies."
An angry god who does not follow his own commandment about love of enemies. That thought hit me hard. I've never been one who gave a great deal of thought to hell, long ago having come to agree with Rohr that most of our notions of hell come from Dante and not the Bible. But I wonder if I don't drag around a lot of my own baggage about God that helps build barriers between me and the divine.
Even most casual Christians are aware of Jesus calling us to love our enemies. Jesus' words, "Father, forgive them," spoken from the cross, are very well known. "God is love," it says in 1 John 4:8, another well known biblical quote. Yet I suspect that my own internal imagery of God often pictures a deity less loving than we who follow Jesus are called to be. Does that mean that I picture a God who is less loving than I imagine myself to be? If so, there are surely implications for my relationship with God.
The evening psalm which I referenced to begin this post does mention benefits for "those who fear him," but I have to think that this "fear" is of an entirely different sort than the one that may lurk in the recesses of my psyche. Biblical awe and reverence are quite other things from my deeply buried worries and fears that God may not be all that well disposed toward me.
Perhaps one reason I've always loved the verses that end Psalm 85 is that they run counter to some of that baggage about God I still tote around. It is a most beautiful, poetic image of restored relationship.
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
The LORD will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him,
and will make a path for his steps.
"Righteousness and peace will kiss each other." Hallelujah!
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