Do Not Hide Your Fear

C. S. Lewis wrote on Faith, as one of the Christian virtues, in his book Mere Christianity, and said this:

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.

So Faith is not something you have when you are quite sure a thing is- when the thing is dancing naked in front of you and you can't help but know it's there. Faith is, apparently, employed especially when you aren't witnessing the thing. It reminds me of how babies have to learn object permanence; that apparently when a parent goes out of the room, they don't know the parent exists anymore (and start crying). So perhaps as babies we learn a simple form of Faith. We all know that we have to trust what we once saw, as it would be silly if we had to sit and stare at something to keep knowing it exists.

I have been thinking of Faith in relation to prayer. One must have Faith in God to believe requesting things in prayer is worthwhile. I do not, for some reason, believe that it is worthwhile right now. I desire things that I think are not possible, specifically getting reasonably beyond my anxiety and its causes.

L'Abri Fellowship came to my mind today, and I remembered that it would probably be good for me to dive into some L'Abri lectures again, instead of philosophical-psychological-political whatnot on YouTube (of which my conscience seems to think I have my fill). So I listened to a little that is called An Introduction to L'Abri, but the beginning has so far been Dr. Francis Schaeffer (a founder of L'Abri) talking about what a miracle that conference was, as it almost fell right through, and telling the conference-goers that that conference was either as miraculous as the beginning of L'Abri itself, or even more so, and that he believes the word 'miracle' to be a very, very sober word.

L'Abri Fellowship was sustained, one might say, on trusting God to provide what they needed. Reading the story in Edith Schaeffer's L'Abri is quite inspiring, if you're open to what can sometimes sound too good to be true (at-times-cynical person here).

As I listened to Dr. Schaeffer, I realised that I do think that God did that then, for them, but He wouldn't do great things for me, now. As if miracles only happen in the past, and for other people. I can't possibly ask God for that; that would be expecting, and being ungrateful for what I have now! It would not be trusting Him to ask for things. And I am supposed to look back on L'Abri and other examples of God's faithfulness and have those examples sustain my faith now, even though I feel dry, and as if all is a lie. God is testing me: I must believe now in this present desert, or else I'm not really a Christian.

The fear in that, that God does not really care for me enough to want me to ask Him for things, controls me now. I've known it for years and years. And what do I do with it? I try to make myself not afraid. I imagine that being afraid is wrong, somehow, and that God won't give me what I want if I'm afraid He won't give it! But then I lie to Him. And while I pray, I try to conjure the answer in myself... I pray not to be anxious, and I try to be not anxious. I try to somehow contain it. But what happens is I stop breathing, and get stomach aches and constipation, I can't relax my shoulders and I find myself clenching my jaws. I can't pray; I don't want to pray. I can't ask God for things if I have to fulfill it myself: what's the point? I do not want a world where I have to be God. But I have this horrible perverted notion that I ought to do these things or else God will not want to answer my prayers.

Bravery cannot exist when there is no fear. Psalm 27 says at the end: 'Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say on the LORD.' Why would there be a call to courage, if we did not fear? There is no courage except from fear. So I must not be afraid that I am afraid. God does not ask me to leave my fear behind before I come to Him. I believe He wants us to be like little children, entirely and completely ourselves, full of fears and worries, and only if we come to Him like that will He be able to soothe us out of our fears.

In bringing our follies and sins to light in prayer to God, they will be exposed to the light, and then they can be changed. But as long as we hide them in the dark, either trying to cure them before we come to God or deceiving ourselves that they are not bad, God cannot change our hearts. We must not keep anything from Him: even our doubt. God does not expect us to be perfectly sure of Him, and sense seems to indicate that we never can be perfectly sure of anything, anyway. He only asks that we be a child before Him, admitting just how we are, and He loves us that way. Just if we come to Him. After all, Jesus became our sin and went to Hell in our place so that God could look on us without judgement (for He cannot be unjust and ignore sin), but see us only as the lovely creations He intended us to be in the Beginning.

My Problems in Prayer

When I pray to believe that God will do the right thing by me, I try to fulfill that prayer. I try to work myself into believing it; to do the work I am asking God to do. I am never really asking. I am afraid that unless I don't do the work, I won't get the prize. Whatever this is, it is built into me: I always feel I must fulfill whatever I ask for. Which probably means I never ask for something that I do not at least take a part in doing myself. I hate to ask for help, for some reason. I hate to ask for anything at all.

I also feel that I should ask for things I know I'll get. Always pray what you believe God actually wants you to have; never pray for what you want. But I believe the Bible is clear that God wants us to tell Him the desires of our hearts. Of course He already knows them, but (as some say) He takes pleasure in us talking to Him and desiring Him to be with us, like that is part of what He made us for; to want Him to love us.

So by that logic, if we want Him, He will be with us, because He is perfect and does exactly what He wants like a perfect promise kept. We usually only want Him on our terms, though, and thus we push Him away. He does not come on our terms. If I really, truly desired Him to help me, He would do it. I don't even think I've ever completely wanted Him, but there have been times I have been closer to it, where I was simple and child-like enough, somehow, and I believe He did help me. But because I am constantly in doubt, I imagine I'm imagining it's so.

In relationship, I have many fears: that people do not really want to be around me, they do not want me to be needy, that they don't want my emotions causing a ruckus, and don't want to know what I desire. If at all possible, I must keep to myself and carry my own burdens alone, as that is what I think others expect of me. And I certainly view God this way. God couldn't possibly want to know my whinings and spontaneous thoughts. I imagine I am as annoying and insignificant as a grovelling beggar to Him. My wants and desires are childish to Him and He couldn't possibly have time to be interested in me. So I try, as I pray, to fulfill the prayers myself; to carry my own weight (or whatever the saying is). If I am going to be a burden, I should only be a burden to myself. So I end up trying to be everything that I need in other people. Everything I need. I try to make sure I've done everything I possibly can before I go to other people about even what I am thinking: to try to perfect it and simplify it and say as little as I can, and ask as little of them, and require as little of their time.

I don't believe God could want me to muss up His time. I forget that the Bible says all sorts of things starkly in contrast to what I feel God wants. 'Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.' When I was a child, I likely felt that His judgement of the Israelites was that they asked too often for things, but since then people corrected me: they did not trust that He would provide. They grumbled and did not, as children, believe He was their good Father, and that He would always, always sustain them. We grumble when we think that someone is not with us, not for us (I know it in my family ;) ); when we doubt that they love us and desire what is good for us. If the Israelites had simply asked for things as if God were their truly loving Father, if what I say is true, He would have been delighted. But that is for the Bible scholars and theologians to tease out (though I wish I could do it).

Thoughts on Faith

I need to have faith that God will work things out for good. I try to take hold of the things in my life and make them work, and I try to make myself fixed, so that I have fulfilled my prayer to God that I be made right. While I am praying, I am trying to work myself into the state I am praying for. And that causes anxiety and makes me forget to breathe and all sorts of unhelpful things. It actually appears that it completely undermines my prayer to be trying to fulfill it, as a natural cause.

Perhaps I'm conflating faith and hope, which are not necessarily the same thing. But perhaps all, or most, of the heavenly virtues are tied together, and must work in concert (a question for another day).

I mean faith as specifically trusting God with my different cares; believing He really exists and has a purpose in all things. Hope comes out of that, it seems, as if you really have faith, odds are you'll hope that things will, of course, turn out as they ought to, as distinct from 'as you want them to'.

Intellectually, I believe that God's purpose absolutely and completely is what is best. It's based on all sorts of different... evidences, let us call them. There's the reason part of it, and there's the emotional justification I have from my experiences, and there's the actual evidence in my own life. But: I don't believe it all the time and probably have never believed it with my whole being. Believing it so much so that I believe that all things will work for my good (and for the good of all the rest of the children of God). To believe that every single thing that happens is exactly what ought to happen for the greatest good, even if it feels painful in the moment. We are told that God will chasten us sore (I think one Psalm says it that way in the King James Version).

Sometimes I actually feel that way; that all happens as it ought to... I probably wouldn't be writing this if I weren't feeling it just a bit right now. The idea of God chastening me sore sounds sometimes like the most wonderful, beautiful, lovely thing. Of course, when He actually does it, it doesn't feel that way. It wouldn't be chastening sore if we liked it in the moment. But sometimes I just know that, since it is what I need, I will be very, very glad it happened later on.

(I am running off in tangents... this isn't even what I meant to be talking about.)

The difficulty is that as I fall deeper into what may be anxiety, depression, and definitely also acedia (do look it up), I lose a hold on what I intellectually believe to be true, and what I have sometimes felt was true. (As usual) C. S. Lewis said something about this in Mere Christianity, because he would do that:

Faith ... is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.

 Which (but my brain is very muddled, so pardon me) may be a different use of the word 'faith' than what I am talking about. Or else it is the same, because faith in God is believing in Him even when your emotions are not feeling it one stinking bit. Believing that what you once knew is still true, even though you don't feel it now. If we believed things according to our whims (our thoughts at any particular time), we'd be the most fickle creatures. Thank God that we do still believe facts even when we don't feel like it. Perhaps it's especially evident in the case of emotional truths, but I think it may apply to 'rational' ones, too.

My friend Lady W. once reminded me of this, and I have since forgotten it, of course. In our doubt, we are not less Christians than when we feel-believe. Faith is not a feeling; it is a choice. It is choosing to believe what we once knew to be true (granted we're not always right).

Now I shall run off and write about courage as it ties into this, which is what I meant to write about.

Codependency in Abba's Child

It's funny when almost every book at one time (excluding The Victory of Reason, as is the case now) relates to what you're working through personally. I thought a few of the books I was being recommended would be peripheral at the very least, but they all relate to the very core of what I've been struggling with all my life, and therefore right now (as I want to be free of those problems, as much as one can expect to in this life).

In Abba's Child (Brennan Manning), Manning happened to be talking about just exactly what I have been thinking through lately. Of course, in his words, with quotes from many people he's read, which is helpful as I think it best to read a topic from a lot of sources. It's possible that I should actually just go through all that I read so far and make a list of the things that stuck out to me, but it would probably be so long that I'm a bit scared to do it. I also keep thinking, in my self-doubting way, 'What's the point? Nobody will care. It'll just be me and my thoughts, alone, forever, though what I'm thinking seems to be God's Truth, nobody else will agree. They never do. I am not someone to agree with.'

And that last piece to some extent illustrates how my life is right now: I shape it around what I think others will or won't want. I capitulate constantly. I let go of myself for others. I don't even know who I am, though I have been for years desperately trying to grab at some shred of who I am. Trying to find yourself, from what I see, is not the way to find yourself. Any time we try to find or create ourselves, we inadvertently begin building up a mask and image of what we think our Self should be. It's when we stop minding our Self and accept what is obvious in front of us (how we behave, how we feel, etc.) that we'll have ourselves, but not in looking at ourselves, but in looking, in a sense, simply at Reality (which complicatedly does include ourselves, but also God and others and the physical world, and of course it's ourselves not in a lying, deceitful way).

(I'm scared at this point that what I said wasn't coherently written. I wish it were, somehow.)

In light of all this, more quotes!

The false self was born when as children we were not loved well or were rejected or abandoned. John Bradshaw defines codependency as a disease "characterized by a loss of identity. To be codependent is to be out of touch with one's feelings, needs and desires." The impostor is the classic codependent. To gain acceptance and approval, the false self suppresses or camouflages feelings, making emotional honesty impossible. Living out of the false self creates a compulsive desire to present a perfect image to the public so that everybody will admire us and nobody will know us. The impostor's life becomes a perpetual roller coaster ride of elation and depression.

This image here is what I sense in my own life. The perfect self I create is different from what he describes himself creating, but that's to be expected. I don't care quite so much as he does about particularly modern success- I have my own idea of success; my own perfect, somewhat shaped by my family life, but also by my own wants and desires. I want to be knowledgeable, wise, accomplished (at what I want to be accomplished at); I do not want to be seen as foolish or not being able to understand things. I dread that. I hate the shame associated with it, so I hide as much as I can that I am ignorant. There are many ways I do this... some last-resort methods when there's a strong possibility someone will ask a direct question of whether I know something. I have learned some arts of manipulation to keep out of myself being Revealed. But if my ignorance is revealed, what shame I feel. This is partly because my family made ignorance such a big deal, and refused to acknowledge that not knowing something is not so bad. My sinful heart says, especially if it's easy to understand the thing once it's explained properly- I always want to validate that I am smart after all and I just didn't know some of the facts. This may be true, but I don't need to justify my ignorance. It's a stupid slippery slope that needs to die.

Abba's Child

My brother lent me one of his books, Abba's Child by Brennan Manning. I have started to nibble through it recently, as a rodent will, having finally finished The Four Loves.

So that is on my plate for now. I am also nibbling through other books when the mood hits me to read those topics, but have put one on hold until I feel like getting back to it. Sort of following my instincts, here; don't you criticise me.

The book kind of talks about God's loving of us; our being His children.

Brennan quotes some nice people saying nice things. He says some good things, too. I had heard of Julian of Norwich from Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians, I believe, as she had influence on C.S. Lewis and possibly others of the Inklings.

She said at some point or other...

Our courteous Lord does not want his servants to despair because they fall often and grievously; for our falling does not hinder Him from loving us.

 Brennan Manning later in the same chapter said:

To feel safe is to stop living in my head and sink down into my heart and feel liked and accepted . . . not having to hide anymore and distract myself with books, television, movies, ice cream, shallow conversation . . . staying in the present moment and not escaping into the past or projecting into the future, alert and attentive to the now . . . feeling relaxed and not nervous or jittery . . . no need to impress or dazzle others or draw attention to myself. . . . un-self-conscious, a new way of being with myself, a new way of being in the world . . . calm, unafraid, no anxiety about what's going to happen next . . . loved and valued . . . just being together as an end in itself.

The context of the second is 1. feeling again one's own feelings, and 2. taking down the facade or mask we put on to be accepted in the world (ultimately it's to be accepted by ourselves). That we hate ourselves inherently and our hatred of ourselves means we refuse to face who we are, and to come to God out of that bareness. To be nothing, as we are without God... so that ultimately with God, we will be filled with Something, as we're meant to be: filled with our good purpose as God's creatures.

Traipsing off, now.