When We Hit the Wall
Series: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
Brad Bailey, February 12, 2012
(Could show a video clip from Fat Boy that captures runner hitting the wall in a clearly metaphorical way)
Intro
Ever heard or used the phrase, “I’ve hit the wall”? What does it mean when people say that? (Solicit audience reaction) It means, “I’m at a point I don’t know how to get past… to get over.”
It is a natural part of the fact that faith is something that develops through seasons and stages. It’s an expanding experience throughout life…and sometimes we hit the wall in the process. We all realize that there are degrees of faith… various depths of faith.
There are transitions in life… from one stage of understanding the world to another. [1]
Illus – child thinks ‘Good people do good things’…or ‘Parents can stop bad from happening.’ These reflect something that we might consider to bear some level of truth… at a basic or simplistic level of understanding but they don’t reflect the whole of reality. Such beliefs will face a time in which life is not making sense…disorienting….until they are able to let some presumptions go… and enter a new way of trusting life beyond those assumptions.
Consider this assumption: “God will always keep me safe.” Is it true? Yes in an ultimate way but not in terms of the immediate safety we often presume.
It is natural as finite creatures in relationship to an infinite God, that we will come to points in which what we understand doesn’t fit into what we are experiencing.
We can hear this experience in…
The Example of Asaph
Asaph is one of the greatest worships… and wrote many of the Psalms in Scripture. He captures something of the wall in his own experience which is captured in Psalm 73. [2]
Psalm 73 (NIV)
Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
13 Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.
16 When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.
21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. 23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
> Here Asaph is describing a juncture in which he hit the wall… a point of being at a deep and defining sense of loss to understand how God could be at work. He cannot understand what he is experiencing… it doesn’t fit…he then considers that all his devotion may have been in vain… it becomes oppressive…but then he emerges from that isolating place… and realizes God is there for him… even though he may not understand.
Many have known such times in their journey.
In the 16th century a priest known as St. John of the Cross wrote about what he called the ‘Dark Night of the Soul.’ in which his initial poem narrates the journey of the soul from its bodily home to its union with God. The journey occurs during the night, which represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator. [3] That term, ‘a dark night of the soul’ is one which many have identified with… as it captures what we feel when we hit that wall.
Here are some of the aspects of what happens when find our souls lost in the ‘dark’ or..
Experiencing the “Wall”
• We experience a major crisis of loss or suffering that leads to disillusionment (health, financial, divorce, death of loved one, etc.)
This may come with a deep desire or dream that remains unfulfilled (about getting married… having children…. Succeeding at a particular job.)
This may come with disillusioning experience with spiritual community or leaders
Most often this comes when we are face with a new depth of suffering …that is greater than our current level of faith.
“The wall is what results when the size of your suffering exceeds the size of your faith.” [4]
This is why our faith is always going to be brought to new junctures. Suffering expands our ability to comprehend life. Suffering rounds us out. Suffering tests us and deepens us.
Richard Rohr defines suffering as what happens when you cannot bring about the result that you want in your life. You cannot make someone love you. You cannot escape your newly diagnosed disease. You cannot make your child stop acting in destructive ways. You cannot undo what happened in the car accident, or the fire, or the cuts at the company. You cannot bring back the loved one you have lost, or you cannot keep from losing him/her to this disease. You cannot find meaning in your job or your current life situation. (Noted by David Flowers)
Somewhere along the road, you come to a loss so deep, so dramatic, and so forceful, that we cannot grasp how God is with us.
• Our faith does not appear to “work.”
The activity that had been spiritually uplifting does not seem to be working any more. We can join in worship gatherings, read the Scriptures, try to pray….but we can feel like it is just bouncing off a wall. It’s not that such practices aren’t important…it’s that our spirit seems to be shut down… and we don’t know how to turn it back on.
• We have more questions than answers, and the foundation of our faith feels unclear.
We don’t know where God is, what he is doing, where he is going, how he is getting us there, or when this will be over…sometimes we will wonder whether God exists at all. There are times when you may question everything you ever believed in.
• We can feel distant from others who share our faith… and sometimes become cynical or negative towards ‘the church’ which represents such faith.
Often this leads to withdrawing…possibly trying to ‘go back’ to old life…because never resolved.
Hitting such a wall is not something most lives will experience often… and it may never become a dramatic experience…but when we do experience some level of it, it will be a defining season of the soul. So I want to help us consider what may be going on and what God may be working in us.
The Wall Becomes a Process of Deepening Our Faith
The journey of life will involve various levels orientation… disorientation… and reorientation.
Orientation – an understanding about how the world works and therefore expectations of how it will work for us.
Disorientation – when what we experience does not fit our expectations, we lose our sense of both the map and guide.
Reorientation – Finding life that can live with the reality of what hadn’t previously fit….freedom.
This is what we see in…
The “Wall” that Deepens Peter
The Scriptures testify of how some of those who were the most faithful to God….went through dark times… and hit a wall of understanding. One of those was Peter... one of the twelve disciples of Jesus.
Some may know that Peter was one of the three who was drawn into the closest of partners with Jesus… sort of an inner group of sharing. He was also the most bold…always speaking out and stepping…often ahead of grasping the depth of what was involved.
What we find in Peter… is the fact that those most committed may be those God most refines.
When Jesus begins to explain that he must suffer and die… Peter decries such a thought… and Jesus rebukes him. Peter is ready to be alongside Jesus in the battle to triumph the rulers of Jerusalem… and he just can’t imagine what that could have to do with suffering. . Jesus was eliminating the illusions. Jesus knew that when hardship comes…. we will either defect or deepen that relationship.
This becomes even sharper when soon after the fateful point of which Jesus is preparing to be arrested. Jesus declares that they will all scatter.
Matthew 26:31-34 (NIV)
Then Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: "'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' 32 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee." 33 Peter replied, "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will." 34 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."
Sobering words.
Did Peter have faith? Certainly. But in an understanding of Jesus that was not complete… that could not see the power of God in suffering.
Soon the guards come… Jesus is betrayed by Judas… and taken by force. You may recall…. Peter is ready to take control… he pulls out his knife… takes a swipe…only to be rebuked by Jesus.
And he enters the darkness of that night… the darkness of his soul. Peter begins to face a wall he cannot understand.. and begins to drift into a night of darkness. In that night…. He would deny even knowing Jesus. We can see the signs of the ‘wall.’
• Suffering didn’t fit….and he becomes disoriented
• He had faith in what he grasped about Christ…but he can’t grasp what is unfolding… and so the faith he had doesn’t fit….doesn’t work.
• He withdrew… feeling isolated… perhaps cynical.
In the days ahead… Jesus is crucified….he drifts farther into a place of uncertainty.
The discovery of Jesus rising three days later leaves him astounded…but he still can’t understand it all, He is still disoriented and lost.
At one point he declares to some of the other disciples… ‘I’m going fishing.’ I’m going back… because he doesn’t know how to go forward.
It’s then that Jesus comes to him…and it leads to an engagement with Peter in which he calls him into a life that is beyond the bounds of faith Peter had known.
In this process… I believe we get a glimpse into what are four common elements which God will draw us beyond... purge from us.
Conceit (Pride) – which judges others and alienates us from the fullness of grace
What did Peter claim? Peter claims he isn’t going to scatter and run away like Jesus said…more notably he said… “Even if ALL fall away... I never will. He is above them. We can hear the pride… a pride that by it’s nature is a judgment of others. “They may…but I won’t.”
Such pride will cause us to judge others. We won’t be able to bear God’s grace to others…because we don’t have it for ourselves. Such pride alienates us from the fullness of grace. He could never fully rest in the arms of grace… unless such pride was purged…unless he faced his weakness.
Most of us will find we begin with a lot of pride about ourselves…but along the way…. life has a way of sobering us. If we accept the humility of our weakness… we can emerge with a greater depth to our faith.
Certainty (Presumption) – which alienates us from the fullness of faith
Peter is so certain of what is supposed to happen… and so certain of what he will do. How hard it must have been to have Jesus tell him he was wrong….he was being presumptuous.
The truth is that we live by faith…not certainty.
We are finite creatures who cannot understand all of what God is doing…or what he may be doing.
It is good to plan…but our faith must be in Him alone.
In that transforming …restoring exchange… Peter asks about whether John’s fate will be the same as his… and Jesus says again… it’s not for you to know. (John 21:21-22)
Peter is going to have to surrender his desire for certainty….and live by faith..
(Or as I like to say: learning to trust what we don’t understand by what we do understand.’)
This challenges those of us who live as products of our modern western culture. The period of history known as the Enlightenment brought forth the idea that we can use reason and logic to know everything… the gifts made us feel like gods…. And we presume a quality of certainty in life. God becomes an object we think we can grasp…. A truth we can deduce… and lay claim to certainty about. Don’t get me wrong… I value a faith deeply grounded in reason…. But I know that my faith is also beyond reason. Confidence is mark of faith. Certainty can be a mark of human presumption and demand. [5]
Similarly…God is often allowing us to be purged from our desire for…
Control (Power) – which alienates us from the fullness of trust
Peter can’t handle Jesus being taken by others. This becomes most notable when they come to arrest Jesus. He draws his sword… and faces a rebuke that cuts him to the quick. Jesus tells him to put it away…put away his presumption of control and power.
He would later restore Peter by calling him to a life in which others will bind him and lead him where he does not want to go.
John 21:18 (NIV)
I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."
(Joke: Now when my wife tells me what I should wear and where we are going… I wonder if I am experiencing some weird prophetic fulfillment of these words.)
Jesus is telling Peter…if you follow me in the way of life with the Father…you will surrender your control… that control that drew the sword thinking you could stop the fate that the Father was allowing.
Life will lead us to trying to get more control… or to surrender it to God.
Finally… perhaps the broadest work of all…is that which is allowing us to separated from competing…
Central Attachments (Possessiveness) – which alienate us from our God-given identity and love
Peter was so attached to the victory he believed was at hand… and the role he would have in it.
He had wanted to know if he would be at the right hand.
We can become so attached to the goal that we become more attached to it than God.
When Jesus called Peter beyond the wall…. His central question was:
Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" - John 21:15 (NIV)
Three times… at some level he seems to be purging Peter of all secondary attachments… and settling a deeper devotion that Peter had known.
> Jesus is calling forth the affections of Peter’s heart… the highest motive for sacrificial service unto God.
He is not asking about sentimental feelings. Hebrew culture understood that love was more than an emotion or feeling…which one can’t simply choose. Jesus is referring to a disposition of the heart... what one chose to give themselves to.
Jesus had said ‘You can’t love both God and money… or material wealth.’ His point is that you cannot give your devotion to both.
This is what is noted in a wedding when it is asked of each…’do you forsake giving your heart to all others?’ It reflects a devotion to make our deepest desire to please this person.
Jesus is restoring Peter by deepening the centrality of his attachment.
(We could consider Abraham – God calls him to sacrifice the child who represents his life’s meaning… validity.)
God knows that NO ONE defines us… our value is diminished and demeaned when we give worth to something that is not God.
It can be…
• People
• Possessions
• Positions
• Pleasures…
These can even be religious positions and pleasures. The truth is that we usually begin our relationship with God to have a place to stand – to know what is right and what is wrong, which way is up and which way is down, who is in and who is out, and to be confident that they are in fact part of the in group….more than simply to know God. We all start out on the spiritual journey thinking that we’re seeking God, and in some small way we really are….but more than we would like to see… we are using God for your own pleasure. Our faith is often more about the pleasures and good feelings of God than about God himself. [6]
When we hit the wall it is often the juncture in which we must learn to love God for God, not for the feelings he gives you about God.
That’s idolatry. And so the only way God is going to pull that out of you is to bring you through dark nights.
Why would God allow us to go through such losses ? It can certainly seem hard to understand. But I think the easiest answer is that the nature of what we have allowed something to become… is an illusion… never actually there.
We do not have control… certainty…nor is anything actually the center of our existence other than God is that existence and is good.
God is allowing us to enter a new depth of reality… which we will experience as a loss… of being stripped and left naked… but which reflects the loss of what was never real. [7]
All of us will have times when we hit some level of wall….like Peter… we may want to go fishing….. go back to what is familiar.
• Some will just give up… go back to their old life.... even if all too aware how empty it is.
• Some will go back to a more simplistic religious form of faith… feeling so afraid of the uncertainty…they may try to find some hope in the rules and rituals and become even more rigid about them.
• But like Peter… we can emerge transformed.
The risen Jesus seeks to come to each of us by His Spirit…. And lead us into an ever emerging freedom.
The Emerging Freedom
Jesus embodies the life that lives in the freedom of being in relationship to God the Father.
When he enters the Garden of Gethsemane… and cries out: Father if this cup (of suffering) can be taken from me.. please…but if not… not my will but yours be done.’ In his humanity… he is living beyond the illusion of certainty…. and beyond the illusion of control.
When he cries out from the cross… ‘Father why have you forsaken me?’… his soul is not experiencing the blessings of his Father….but he surrenders his spirit…because he was free from the illusion that any other source defined his life. His Father remained his primary attachment.
Jesus is the life that lives in such relationship to God… the life that transcends the illusions… the life that prevails beyond understanding.
Now risen… he comes to offer u that freedom.
Such freedom is what Peter moved further into. Such freedom is the life which the apostle Paul made his goal, declaring:
Philippians 3:10-12 (NIV)
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
COMMUNION: I want to invite us to receive the life of Christ afresh through the Lord’s Supper… that which he said represented his body in the bread… and his blood in the juice. And as we do… take some time to reflect on the process you may have faced in the past...or even now… of expanding your faith…. of having to face the illusions that come with pride… certainty… control... or other attachments.
Resources: Peter Scazzero, David Flowers - great depth of personal insight shared in message ‘Journey Through the Wall.’
Notes:
1. A good source for viewing the stages of leaders in Scripture and then personally: http://thecallingjourney.com/users/
2. Rich Lusk notes: We should be encouraged that a man of Asaph’s stature had these kinds of struggles. He directed Israel’s choir under David’s kingship (1 Chron. 6:39; 15:17, 19; 16:4-5), spoke as a prophet (2 Chron. 29:30), and wrote inspired hymns sung by the church for 3000 years now (Ps. 50, 73-83). He was a godly man, a skilled musician, and a knowledgeable theologian. His sons/descendants were well known too (1 Chonr. 25:1; 2 Chron. 20:14; Ezra 2:41).
As David Swensen notes in his message entitled ‘Dark Night of the Soul,
Psalms of lament often make people uncomfortable. They say things we aren’t sure should even be said aloud. They get in touch with the pain inside of us that we’re not always eager to engage.
Nevertheless, …psalms of lament are part of the inspired Word of Almighty God. They have been placed there by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, deliberately, thereby giving us permission to lament.
Psalm 10 begins by saying, “WHY, O LORD, DO YOU STAND FAR OFF? WHY DO YOU HIDE YOURSELF IN TIMES OF TROUBLE?”
Have there ever been times in your life when you felt like saying that to God?
In Psalm 22 David cried out saying, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? WHY ARE YOU SO FAR FROM THE WORDS OF MY GROANING? O MY GOD, I CRY OUT BY DAY BUT YOU DO NOT ANSWER….”
Have you ever entertained those thoughts?
Psalm 42 says, “WHEN CAN I GO AND MEET WITH GOD? MY TEARS HAVE BEEN MY FOOD DAY AND NIGHT.”
Psalm 88 is probably one of the bleakest: “I CRY TO YOU FOR HELP, O LORD….WHY, O LORD, DO YOU REJECT ME AND HIDE YOUR FACE FROM ME?”
“There is a feeling among us that seems to think crying and complaining and lamenting to God are signs of a feeble faith. If you had a strong faith, you wouldn’t” complain and lament. Some feel that good Christians don’t complain; they certainly don’t question and doubt. Good Christians can handle anything; they are never down. Their faith never wavers. Many are, therefore, inclined to think that it is a sign of weakness, of an inadequate faith if we question and complain. But this is certainly not the case. In a world where there is so much hurt and pain we need to be able to express our feelings and be honest with God.
We also need to express ourselves because it is healthier for us to pour out our pain. There is something therapeutic about it. Besides, God knows what we are thinking anyway!
In the 13th Psalm, the Psalmist David, with troubled heart, cries out to God saying,
“HOW LONG, O LORD? WILL YOU FORGET ME FOREVER? HOW LONG WILL YOU HIDE YOUR FACE FROM ME?”
His complaint is that God has failed to act on his behalf and seems unwilling even to listen to his appeal for help.
We can also note how the prophet Habakkuk knew that the Babylonians were going to invade and destroy Jerusalem. He is fully aware that there is no hope of salvation in his lifetime. Yet in the midst of such utter despair he writes:
"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior."
(Habakkuk 3: 16-18 - NIV).
3. Dark Night of the Soul is the title of a poem written by 16th-century Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross, as well as of a treatise he wrote later, commenting on the poem. Saint John of the Cross was a Carmelite priest. His poem narrates the journey of the soul from its bodily home to its union with God. The journey occurs during the night, which represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator. There are several steps in this night, which are related in successive stanzas. The main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God. The poem is divided into two books that reflect the two phases of the dark night. The first is a purification of the senses. The second and more intense of the two stages is that of the purification of the spirit, which is the less common of the two. Dark Night of the Soul further describes the ten steps on the ladder of mystical love, previously described by Saint Thomas Aquinas and in part by Aristotle. The text was written while John of the Cross was imprisoned by his Carmelite brothers, who opposed his reformations to the Order. – From Wikopedia
The treatise, written later, is a theological commentary on the poem, explaining its meaning by stanza.
4. I am indebted to David Flowers who presents both a clear grasp of the role of suffering in understanding the “walls” we face… and a very personal journey of such an experience. After noting: “The wall is what results when the size of your suffering exceeds the size of your faith,” he goes on to state:
“This is part of the journey. I mean, the only thing you can place your faith in is what you are capable of grasping at any given moment. And before you have suffered deeply, you are simply not capable of grasping very much. Suffering expands our ability to comprehend life. Suffering rounds us out. Suffering tests us and deepens us. Suffering helps us see what matters and what doesn’t.
And it is not enough to merely know that suffering exists and that other people suffer. That will not deepen you sufficiently and the knowledge of the suffering of others will not bring you to the wall, unless another person you care about is suffering to such an extreme degree that their suffering creates deep suffering in you as well. The suffering that brings you to the wall is always personal suffering. Richard Rohr defines suffering as what happens when you cannot bring about the result that you want in your life. You cannot make someone love you. You cannot escape your newly diagnosed disease. You cannot make your child stop sleeping around or taking drugs. You cannot make your spouse treat you with respect. You cannot undo what happened in the car accident, or the fire, or the cuts at the company. You cannot bring back the loved one you have lost, or you cannot keep from losing him/her to this disease. You cannot find meaning in your job or your current life situation.” - David Flowers, message ‘Journey Through the Wall.’
5. Regarding our need to give up certainty, we can also note:
Proverbs 27:1 (NIV)
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.
James 4:13-14 (NIV)
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Peter Enns notes: “Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind, but we are only leaving behind the idea of God we like to surround ourselves with—the small God, the God we control, the God who agrees with us. Doubt forces us to look at who we think God is.
6. Regarding the need to purge our attachment to the pleasures of God, St. John of the Cross referred to this as “luxury.” And for him luxury was basically using God for your own pleasure. He’s basically saying, you lived your life before you came to Christ for your own pleasures, and now you come to Christ and you’re using God for your own pleasure. You are basically more about the pleasures and good feelings of God than about God himself.
Augustine declared:
"Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshiped."-
"Good men use the world to enjoy God; bad men use God to enjoy the world."
-Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 22:20
I believe David Flowers captures the path of faith most clearly when he states:
“There are two primary reasons people embark upon the spiritual path. The first reason, and the one we all begin with, is to have a place to stand – to know what is right and what is wrong, which way is up and which way is down, who is in and who is out, and to be confident that they are in fact part of the in group. The other reason is to know God. I know. We all start out on the spiritual journey thinking that we’re seeking God, and in some small way we really are. But twenty years down the road, you can tell who was seeking security and rightness and in-ness and who was seeking God. The first group will have either lost their faith entirely, or else they will have grown increasingly rigid, increasingly harsh with themselves and with others, and increasingly legalistic. The second group, most likely, will have grown in faith, grown in love, grown in ways that have expanded them and not shrunk them down. The only way this can happen is if a person hits the wall and goes through it. The wall separates the men from the boys, so to speak, in terms of the spiritual life.”
7. As St. John of the Cross would explain, the darkness is not from God but from the light of God exposing our own darkness.
