Struggle. Who has escaped it over the last twelve months? While I hope each of us can name some benefits and bright spots through this season, we have all undoubtedly weathered some amount of confusion, fear, discord, and loss. Our Struggle and Hope series has explored our paradoxical relationship to struggle. We resist it, yet we must reckon with it, because struggle always invites us to name something true about our reality, our need, and our hope.
Struggle offers us a powerful impetus to name our reality. After eating from the tree and realizing their nakedness, Adam and Eve hide from God in the garden. In this scene, God does not sneak up on them. He does not chase them. The Lord God invites Adam and Eve out of their shame-stricken hiding with a question.
"Where are you?"
Obviously God knows exactly where they are, so we assume the question to be didactic. It appears to matter to God that His children name the place in which they find themselves.
God invites Adam to move out of hiding and name his reality. Out loud. In front of Eve and in front of his Creator. The reality Adam names is not necessarily a pleasant one. He is naked, afraid, hiding... and now also exposed.
The invitation is ours as well. Struggle invites us to move out of denial and orient ourselves to our actual reality. Not the reality of where we've been. Not the reality of where we'd like to be. Struggle invites us to name the reality of where we genuinely are, even (and perhaps especially) when the place we find ourselves differs from what we desire.
I can pretend everything is fine until my anxiety produces such terrible headaches that I need to call out from work. I can buy into a belief that my spiritual life is stable and strong until I find myself crying bitter tears during worship. I can contend my marriage is impenetrable until we slug through that same old dispute... again. Our struggles invite us to name something true of our reality.
Second, struggle invites us to name something true of our need. We observe this most clearly in God's design of our bodies. We thirst when we need water. My back aches when it's time to pause in my battle with the mulch bed weeds. That strange, dull toothache needs the attention of a dentist. The struggle of pain illuminates a need for attentive care and rest. This is equally true in our emotional and spiritual life. My work anxiety belies a need to re-evaluate my values and beliefs surrounding my vocation. My bitter tears speak to disappointment in my relationship with God that needs addressing. That same old marital dispute highlights wounding that needs understanding and forgiveness.
Though painful, struggle moves us out of denial and opens our palms to confess our need. My belief is, similar to Adam and Eve, that God designed a benefit to this confession occurring out loud, in front of each other, and in front of Him. Our confession of need names what is true: All is not well, more attention needed here.
Lastly, struggle invites us to name something true of our hope. When struggle plants me face-to-face with my reality and my need, my search for hope intensifies, and I am afforded a choice of where I might go to find it. Is my hope in the numbing effects of another cookie? Or the allure of sitting in the seat of superiority as I re-hash that bothersome conversation [again] in my head? The true beauty of an honest engagement with our struggles is that our reality and our needs offer us a path right back to the arms of our Jesus. We need not despair, disdaining our circumstances and denying our needs. We can simply take the next faithful step toward Him in hope that He will meet us and strengthen us. If we need correction, He will convict us, and no matter what, He will care for us.
I love the illustration of this we are given in Jesus' response to Mary and Martha after Lazarus' death. When Martha hears that Jesus is coming to town, she runs out to meet Him. When she reaches Him, she names plainly something true of her reality and her need. Her brother died, Jesus didn't show up in time, and now she needs it made right. Jesus responds to her with a word of hope. "Your brother will rise again... He who believes in me will live." Martha is invited to hope in Jesus' power over suffering and death.
The scene continues with Mary running to meet Jesus. Like Martha, she minces not a word, immediately naming something true of her reality and her need. Her brother died, Jesus didn't show up in time, and now she needs it made right. This time, Jesus responds to Mary with tender compassion. "He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled." Jesus weeps and Mary is invited to hope in His presence in the midst of suffering and death.
What more can be said? May God continue to compel you and me toward deeper and deeper honesty about our struggles. May He give us courage to seek conviction, care, and rest as we grow in awareness of our need, and may He lavish us with hope in His power and presence as we look for the life of the world to come. Amen.
—Claire Lewis is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the West End.
