faith

Why I’m Not Hoping My Kids Love God

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My whole life I’ve always thought that loving God and raising my kids to love God was the highest form of moral and spiritual accomplishment. If I could just get myself and them to this head and heart space of loving God above all else, surely then we would live meaningful and happier lives.

But recently, in the middle of my own wrestling with faith and all things spiritual, I got to thinking, what if we all just learned to like God? You know, just get to know Him a little better and actually LIKE Him. And then see what happens after that?

It seems like when I’m commanded to do ANYTHING my natural inclination is to resist. I don’t think it’s all that different with love. I’ve perfected the art of loving someone without really liking them. We joke about it. You know the bumper sticker, “Jesus loves you. The rest of us think you’re an asshole.” Yeah. That. And He only loves you because He has to. He’s God. He loves everyone. The rest of us don’t really care for you. We care about you at the most minimal level so as to comply with the commandments. We tolerate you. We half-heartedly wish you well without really being invested in your well-being.

We teach our kids this same theology. Love God because we say so. Because the Bible says so. Love God because it’s the right thing to do. Love God because there might be scary consequences if you don’t. And by the way, do all this stuff He commands and expects of you. Because. We say so. This doesn’t really make God feel all that likable.


When I think about the people in my life that I really like, I smile. Because they make me feel good about myself. They make me laugh. I love to spend time with them. I can count on them and I know they’ll always be there for me. They want what’s best for me. I trust them with my deepest thoughts and feelings. They know me. They hear me. They see me. The people I really like take good care of my heart.  They know I’m not perfect, but they keep coming back around because they see the value in me despite my shortcomings. I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not. They already like me just as I am.

This is what I really believe God is like. I really like Him a lot more than I used to.

And I’m convinced He likes me, too.

Religion and faith can be so complicated and messy. Talk about humanity screwing something up beyond all recognition. Sometimes I think God must look down and just shake His head as if to say, “This is so far off from what I wanted for you guys.” In the book Love Does, by the legendary Bob Goff, he says this about keeping faith simple:

“…I see myself floating in a massive sea of God’s love. The circle of His grace and forgiveness is big enough and the line leading to Him is long enough that I don’t always need to be measuring latitude and longitude to find myself. It’s a pretty easy calculation each day actually…I just stay somewhere in that circle.”

This. This is a God I like. This is a God I think my kids would like and want to know and spend time with. I want them to know that liking God is easy. Sure the Bible commands us to love God with all of our hearts. And I absolutely want that for myself and for my kids. But the path to loving Him is liking Him. And that’s where I’m going to start.

It’s Thursday. And This is What I’m Reading: Take This Bread

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“Conversion isn’t, after all, a moment: It’s a process, and it keeps happening, with cycles of acceptance and resistance, epiphany and doubt.”

Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, by Sara Miles 

Raised an atheist, Sara Miles is a left-wing lesbian who traveled the world as a journalist, covering world revolutions. Early one morning, on what felt like a whim, she wandered into St. George’s Episcopalian Church in San Francisco, participated in their “Open Communion” service, and as she received the sacraments, had an outrageous life-altering encounter with Jesus– a Jesus she had thus far scorned and rejected. What happened in the years that followed left me equal parts fascinated, convicted and inspired.

“As I struggled with bread and wine and belief over the following year at St. Gregory’s, it stayed hard. I began to understand why so many people chose to be “born-again” and follow strict rules that would tell them what to do, once and for all. It was tempting to rely on a formula– “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior,” for example– that became itself a form of idolatry and kept you from experiencing God in your flesh, in the complicated flesh of others. It was tempting to proclaim yourself “saved” and go back to sleep. The faith I was finding was jagged and more difficult… It was about action…My first, questioning year at church ended with a question whose urgency would propel me into work I’d never imagined: Now that you’ve taken the bread, what are you going to do?”

Miles had an answer to that. She went on a mission to start and run a weekly food pantry serving the poor and gritty community surrounding the church. Through it, she continually comes face to face with the best and worst of people, within the church walls and outside of them; daily wrestling with what it means to love, to serve, to co-exist and to know God.

“I was going to keep giving food away. What I glimpsed in the projects was the last thing I’d expected growing up: that because God was about feeding and being fed, religion could be a way not to separate people but to unite them…The sharing of food was an actual sacrament, one that resonated beyond the church and its regulations, and into a real experience of the divine. I wanted more.”

Page after page, chapter after chapter, as I read of her hunger to know God and her hunger to serve people, I slunk lower and lower into my seat. This woman. A few years ago, before my own faith shift, I would not have been able to read this book and see this woman for the inspiration and role model that she is to me now. I am embarrassed to say I would’ve judged her. I would’ve said no. Not her. Her lifestyle. Her history. (As if mine is so exemplary) The totally unorthodox and untraditional way she lives in every sense, relative to my White, suburban cage. Ouch. And now. I like her. More than I like myself. She’s going and doing. And I admire that.

“So many of the arguments between left- and right-wing Christians, fundamentalists and Episcopalians, Roman Catholics and Pentecostals, seemed to hinge on the idea that their own sect had the correct practice, “the secret code,” that would save the followers and make God reward them. That was idolatry, as I saw it: magical thinking, pagan religion. I didn’t think God needed humans to practice religion at all: God didn’t need to be appeased by sacrifices or offerings or perfectly memorized quotations from the Bible spoken in the right order. God was not manageable.”

The idea that God is not manageable, not to be tamed; That perhaps there is no exact science to faith and belief… Well, I think I sighed audibly after reading that. I think the relief I have felt at discovering this was…is…palpable.

As I turned the last page of Take This Bread~

This is what I thought:

If you’re doing more judging than loving–

If you’re doing more talking than walking–

If you’re not somehow doing SOMETHING that makes a generous, soulful contribution into other people’s lives–

No one really gives a shit what you think about pre-destination and election. About post-trib or pre-trib. About free will. And quite frankly, I don’t think God does either.

“You have been greatly loved,” said a piece of the Gospel that had stuck with me. Go and do likewise. That seemed pretty damn clear. My only sense of “mission” now was to show others that they, too, could feed and touch and heal and love, without fear.”

Love people and do something about it. Period.

This is what I felt:

A little overwhelmed and embarrassed– a little silly– by how white, suburban, Evangelically, I have viewed God. I mean, really. There is a whole world out there whose experience with God is just as valid and real and authentic. I felt guilty and kinda dumb for thinking that the way I previously believed and lived was somehow better than Sara Miles and everything she represents.

This is what I’ll do:

Ok. The last few years have been rough. And I needed a break– from church, from service, from community, in many ways and on many levels. But as I move ahead in this new season of my life, this book has inspired me to find church again, to engage in community again, to be of service again.

“What happened once I started distributing communion was the truly disturbing, dreadful realization about Christianity: You can’t be a Christian by yourself.”

“Unity is a gospel imperative when we recognize that it opens us to change, to conversion: when we realize how our life with Christ is somehow bound up with our willingness to abide with those we think are sinful, and those we think are stupid.”

I want to give back. I want to get involved again. I want to take up a cause. Be a part of social justice in some way. And this time, with my eyes and heart fully open and aware that the cost of relationships– of community– is part of the rent we pay for living here. And it’s worth it.

 “Christianity wasn’t an argument I could win, or even resolve. It wasn’t a thesis. It was a mystery that I was finally willing to swallow. I was loved by a big love. In the midst of suffering, of hunger, even of death. Alleluia. What was, finally, so hard about accepting that?”

Read this book. Even if you don’t connect with Christianity- or any faith at all, for that matter. Sara Miles has written a challenging and engaging story that has continued to help me redefine what I want my journey here on this earth, as a human being, to look like. I am loved by a big love. What’s so hard about that?

Scenes From a [temporary] Break Up with Jesus

images-14As I was bustling about my prep work one morning, a co-worker whom I adore asked if I wanted to hear a horrible joke. Assuming it was a sex joke, which, you know, I’m always down for because I’m a terrible person– I said yes. But it wasn’t. It was actually a Jesus joke– and had I known that, I would’ve said no thanks. Sex jokes are funny and naughty and even if they turn out to cross every boundary you have, you can easily forget about them. Not so much with Jesus jokes. The joke was short and to the point and as soon as it was over, I gave a fake laugh and a half-smile and said, “Sorry- nope. Can’t do that one. Not funny.” I didn’t want her to feel too bad about it because the truth is, this person really has no idea about Jesus-y things. If I can be so presumptuous and naive to say this– she doesn’t know better. But as I turned back to my work, my heart was heavy and tears pricked my eyes.

I’m gonna be honest– over a year ago or so, I told Jesus I was breaking up with Him. Maybe not forever, but I needed a break. I even used “It’s not you, it’s me.” (Although He and I both sort of knew…it kind of WAS Him.) And since then, I have struggled and wrestled with Him. I have cried and said mean things to Him and shook my proverbial fist in misunderstanding and hurt feelings and unmet expectations. I have cried into my pillow at night and whispered worries and gratitudes and short prayers for loved ones. But we both knew things had changed. I have heard Him whisper, “Please come closer–” and I have held my arms tight across my chest like the passive aggressive girl that I am and turned my head, all the while silently hoping He wouldn’t leave. That He would ask again. And again. I needed space. I needed time. I never wanted to see other people. I just didn’t know if I wanted to keep seeing Him. Or how He and I were going to bridge the gap that now felt like the Grand Canyon.

And you see as of late, my faith has been questioned. My love for God. My devotion to Jesus. And maybe rightly so. There was a collision of sorts happening all at once– the final undoing of my marriage intersected with the most profound spiritual awakening and insights I’ve ever experienced as an adult. And while some of these were good, necessary things, they were messy. Painful. Confusing. It’s sort of been an ongoing thing to wrestle with the deeper questions of love and faith. Of God and His somewhat unknowable ways. I have, at times, screamed in my heart, “Is this a game to you?! THIS IS MY LIFE!” And yet, like the girlfriend who just can’t let go, I’d always come back around, feeling shy and a little guilty for my bad behavior. “It’s not that I don’t love you,” I’d timidly point out. “I just don’t know what to do with you.” So feeling those tears– having hurt feelings and a heavy heart– on behalf of Jesus– was a beautiful, bizarre gift to me. Because hearing that joke was like hearing something rude about one of my kids or any person I love. The kind of thing where you think to yourself, “If you really knew them, you’d never say that. Because it’s so not true.” And though I wished I could un-hear it, I’ve come to see that it’s because I love Jesus so much. That’s why it hurts. And though I don’t need to prove that to anyone else (because I never really could anyway),  maybe I needed to prove it to myself.