I, like many in my generation, am haunted by the illusion of instant gratification. I want to know as soon as toe touches water that something I am pursuing or moving towards is going to be known, the outcomes clearly defined. I want an assurance that things will work out and all the effort, strain, and stress of ascending these emotionally jagged rocks of interaction are not going to cut me into shredded ruins, but will shape me (perhaps painfully) to something profound, deeper, more refined and (if I am very lucky) a wiser and more compassionate person than the one that first entered the scene.
I’ve recently spent an evening and an afternoon discussing the stretching territory of relationships with a friend. If there is one area that seems absolutely mystifying to me it is the space of romantic relationships. As she shared the journey she is on in relationship, I confess that I had few words of comfort or even insight. The most I could offer was a listening ear that ended with sympathetic smiles and nods. Having never been married, I am continually curious about the “how did you know?” question I often pose to people brave enough to take the step. To my great disappointment, it usually generates a response that is less than helpful. It is usually a When Harry Met Sally-esk, “you just know, like how you know about a good melon”. Uh huh.
These are perplexing responses because it implies you know yourself well enough to “know” you are having that particular feeling and further perplexing because it so subjective. You can’t point to a spot on your chest and say, "Ah ha! The this-is-the-ONE indicator light has begun blinking, sweet!”
As I have been thinking about our conversations, my mind wandered to the nearly equally mysterious realms of trust and faith in God. I often feel that my walk with God can take on the ebb and flow of a romantic relationship. At times it is exciting and heart pounding. I feel His presence in an almost palpable way. In other spaces I feel that we are distant from one another, and there are not always clear reasons behind it. I go through (sometimes long) seasons where I doubt Him; I doubt His goodness, His faithfulness, and His love. I feel rejected and spurned. I feel foolish for believing in someone so obviously indifferent to me. I am reminded of more than one movie scene where the lovers have faded in each other’s minds from goddess to meager companion. They turn jealously upon each other, certain that the other has betrayed them in the most intimate way possible. Certain that the other should never have been trusted and relied upon, knowing deep down that this was coming all along. In truth I turn my finite fears loose onto a mysterious and infinite being. Thank God I am not left there to wallow. There is a choice that remains to be made, give in to fear or give up to the mystery of faith and trust. At my darkest moments I am always offered an opportunity, which path will I walk? Will I retreat further into the cool embrace of darkness, or will I take the next terrifying step out in faith? In my experience, relationships are very similar. There comes a point where you look at the other person and you have to answer that internal question. Will you stay or will you go? Will you take that next step with me or without me?
So many people tell me that their long-term relationship with their spouse has been one of the most spiritually formative relationships they have known. It has pushed out all of their borders; it has allowed someone into the most sacred personal spaces, even when they did not really wish to share it. The experience has been painful and beautiful and humbling in ways they could not explain to me even to this day. And of course that is the part that is the scariest and the most intriguing to me. There are no guarantees. There is no promise on the front end that all of the moments together from that day to this will be a summation of deeply satisfying connection and understanding. Perhaps God intended all of this in order to get us over ourselves, get us out beyond our own comfort and understanding, giving us the chance to take a risk that, apart from God’s sustenance, would be a promise we would not be able to keep. Like spiritual superglue He presses us up against each other and holds us close enough to have to look each other in the eye and smell each other’s breath. Its uncomfortable, its too close, too vulnerable, too strange, too other. And yet something remarkable happens, we realize that we are looking into His eyes, we realize that He has pressed us against His own flesh to hear His own beating heart. It is more intimate than we ever wanted and yet, it draws us in quaking and quivering. It is not a promise of ease or personal comfort or even clearly defined outcomes. It is the promise of being; the culmination of our being willing and His being present.
