I realized a couple mornings ago after talking to my spiritual director, that lots of times we treat Jesus like a therapist - someone we turn to, to help make us well.
Part of my frustration with Christianity has been it's failure to produce the kinds of changes in myself and others that I think it should be able to produce. And Jesus, just doesn't seem to be a good therapist after all - because I've been meeting with him for a bunch of years, but still find myself messier than I'd like to be.
I have a longing for deep transformation. But sometimes church makes me feel like I'm at an Amway convention where the hype seems bigger than the real thing most people are experiencing.
But in my helpful conversation a few mornings ago I came to realize that being changed by God isn't the primary reason I'm invited into relationship with God. The real purpose of following, is to be with Jesus. It's relationship, just for the sake of relationship. Or intimacy for the purpose of intimacy. God wants to restore the relationship broken between God and creation. It's reconciliation first, and then change as the by-product of being restored in the relationship. Like most people in my culture, I often just want God to be useful to me, without the entanglements of a real friendship.
Skye Jethani, in his brilliant book, "With: Re-imagining the Way You Relate To God", describes how frequently we take one of four postures towards God: Life Under God, Life Over God, Life From God, or Life For God. In Skye's perspective, all of these represent a half-truth, a distortion, a way of relating to God that ultimately ends up trying to control the world by placing God in a certain position, but neglecting to actually be present and intimate.
I think I could add one to Skye's list. It's a posture of "Life Consuming God", where we turn God into some kind of commodity to be used for our own purposes. There are plenty ways this plays out, but I'm particularly aware of how we use God or Jesus as a kind of therapeutic tool - to satisfy our fears and unhappiness with life. Whether it's the big troubling questions of existence, or more like using God as our own personal life coach to help us make little improvements here and there, we follow a dominant pattern in our culture that encourages us to think about everything in terms of what it can be used for.
But it we pursue God for our own ends, even if they are noble goals like wanting deep transformation, we taint the relationship by bringing our agenda to it, rather than wanting it for it's own sake. If I try to forge a friendship with a lawyer because I'm hoping for free legal advice, the relationship is never really about them as a person, it becomes based on what they in their role can provide for me. If I come to God primarily looking for some kind of method of personal change or growth, it places a block in the relationship. And in the case of God, trying to use God for our purposes is a gross distortion of the created order - it turns God into an idol rather than fully acknowledging that we God's creation and subject to God, rather than the other way around.
So Jesus isn't your therapist?
Well, yes and no.
Yes, a relationship with God is transformative, but there are problems if it's they primary reason or focus of pursuing closeness. It really needs to be a by-product of the relationship instead. Life with God is therapeutic. But it's important not to seek out God as our therapist, but instead seek God just because He/She is God.
Relationship purely for the sake of relationship. No agenda, no aims, no using the other person for something...and...with the God of the universe.
Mind-boggling isn't it?
No comments:
Post a Comment