Why the journey of faith is not a smooth path but a profound wrestling match with God, and learn how embracing this complexity is the key to true intimacy.



Coming to faith is like falling in love. For some, it is head-over-heels love at first sight, with a rush to the altar. Others find the entire idea of spiritual things wholly to their unliking, only to discover that many of their first impressions were mistaken. A begrudging acceptance moves toward appreciation and then, almost unnoticed, slips over the line into heartfelt embrace.

Yet in either case, Malcolm Muggeridge was right in observing that in the end, coming to faith remains for all a “sense of homecoming, of picking up the threads of a lost life, of responding to a bell that had long been ringing, of taking a place at a table that had long been vacant.”

But then romance crashes headlong into reality. We give ourselves to God and then struggle profoundly with the relationship. We are drawn inexorably in and then find ourselves wanting to flee in fear. We move from faith to doubt, trust to confusion, intimacy to a feeling of abandonment. We find that living with God is not easy.

Most respond to the struggle with guilt, presuming that faith should somehow be free of complexity and challenge. They blame themselves, lamenting the condition of their soul that would allow such thoughts and feelings toward God.

Thus, the struggle is not embraced but instead confessed.

Others simply dismiss the entire affair, choosing to live on the surface of faith, condemning their spiritual lives to a bloodless existence that brings neither life nor death. Their lack of spiritual concern leads them to neither deny nor embrace the struggle. Then, in a terrible moment when vibrant faith is required, they experience the anguish of an untested soul.

Some respond to the struggle with resentment. They separate themselves from God and all things pertaining to Him. As C.S. Lewis once remarked, they place God in the dock where—judged by their expectations of how life should be—God cannot escape indictment.

Yet guilt, neglect, and resentment are not the goals of God’s relation to us. This God has not only made Himself known to us, but also has fallen madly in love with us. Our Creator has pursued His creation throughout time—even to the point of dying on our behalf. This God longs for the deepest of intimacies. He seeks our love – heart, soul, mind, and strength – a love with such force that it cannot help but overflow to those around us. Jesus’ words along these lines have become known as the Great Commandment—in truth, the portrait of a Lover’s dream.

But this only adds to our dilemma.

To return such love in such a manner involves total devotion, the very thing our struggle keeps us from giving. To speak of heart, soul, strength, and mind is to speak of the totality of life itself. As Abraham Kuyper, founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, once declared, “There is not a single inch of any sphere of my life to which Christ does not say, ‘Mine!’”

We tend to remove ourselves from the staggering ramifications of this by intellectualizing the affair. Rather than responding to God in like manner (relationally), we engage His proposal philosophically, as an abstract idea to be evaluated on its virtuous intent.

This was the response of the person who first prompted Jesus to speak along these lines:

A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate - that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that's better than all offerings and sacrifices put together! (Mark 12:32-33, Msg)

But intellectual affirmation was not what Jesus was after. Thus, He replied, “You're almost there, right on the border of God's kingdom” (Mark 12:34, Msg).

Jesus understood that knowing you should love God with all your being was distinct from embracing that kind of love experientially. Which means the struggle cannot be avoided.

Guilt, apathy, and resentment will keep our souls from responding to the call of our creation. The struggle to live in relationship with our loving God has marked the lives of all the great souls, from the Desert Fathers to the medieval mystics, from the ancient martyrs to the modern saints.

And it must mark our own.

If the tension points in our relationship with God cannot be owned, talked about, and laid bare before Him, then not only will we be unable to receive the love for which we were created, we will also be unable to return it. We hunger not merely for an encounter with God but also for authenticity with God. We want to know and be known to throw ourselves fully into the wonder and tumult of His mystery.

But this relationship demands more than acquiescence; it demands transparency and deep knowledge. A knowing kind of love demands that we explore what we often do not wish to explore, namely, the complexities of our relationship with God: the complexities that strike at the heart of the relationship and threaten its very existence. Any attempt to approach God independent of this strikes me as false.

I have always resonated with C.S. Lewis, “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” Because his journey took him through paralyzing issues that often beset the embrace of faith, he was able to speak about matters of faith with more clarity than virtually anyone else in modern Christendom.

But such a journey is rare. When conflicts arise, we bury them, turn a cold shoulder, explode in emotion, or simply run away. We think that such a pseudo-community is the easiest and best way to live.

It’s not.

Until we are willing to explore the dynamics that exist between us at the deepest relational levels, we will never draw near and experience community. M. Scott Peck speaks of this as entering into chaos, for it is messy, frightening, and difficult. And he’s right.

I cannot begin to tell you how gut-wrenching conflict resolution and truth-telling in human relationships are for me, but I have found them to be even more daunting tasks to pursue with God. There are questions reverberating through my mind I do not want to speak; feelings I do not want to own; doubts I do not want to surface—particularly as I know that they speak far more about me than they do Him.

Yet only when my struggle is embraced can I journey toward that which I long for: intimacy with God.

And that is the one journey that is worth everything.

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