Chaplain's Corner

“Talkin’ to myself and feeling old. Sometimes I’d like to quit, nothin’ ever seems to fit; hangin’ around, nothin’ to do but frown, rainy days and Mondays always get me down. What I go they used to call the blues. Nothin’ is really wrong, feeling like I don’t belong; walking around, some kind of lonely clown, rainy days and Mondays always get me down…” (composed by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams, sung by the Carpenters, 1971).

You might remember the song sung by Karen Carpenter back in the early 70’s. The song reflects a spiritual state, a sense of purposelessness that afflicts all of us from time to time. There are days that this “funk” comes over me, I work hard not to let it “take me over”, many who know me may even be surprised that this is something I experience, but I have those days, as you do.

I call this a spiritual state because it reflects a sense of purposelessness, disconnection, and a loss of hope; all of which are spiritual issues. This feeling has many expressions, but many of us experience it regularly throughout our lives. There are degrees of this spiritual experience. For some it is a mild low that lasts a few hours from time to time, for others it is a pervasive sense that overwhelms. In my experience I have known both; most of the time it is the short lived sense but there was a time when this sense overwhelmed for nearly a year. It was difficult to work, difficult to be with people, difficult to be a husband and father, difficult to face each day.

This is perhaps why the song resonated with people and reached the #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. This feeling of being “down” is so common and so difficult to live with that many turn to mediation. In the University of Toronto magazine Leading Edge / Winter 2003 it was reported that “A recent U of T study found a 353 per cent increase in antidepressant prescriptions (from 3.2 million to 14.5 million) between 1981 and 2000.” The decade since has not seen a slowdown.

Why is it that we are so unwilling to tolerate these feelings? There are a number of reasons. One is cultural. The culture in North America has become increasingly intolerant of pain and discomfort of any kind. We have come to believe that pain and discomfort need not be tolerated, that there are no lessons to be learned from them and that they should be avoided or managed any way possible. This cultural intolerance of suffering is one of the factors behind the rise in obesity, the growing problem with addictions of every kind (alcohol, illicit drugs, prescription drugs, gambling, etc) and the expectation that the government is responsible to do something about suffering.

There are others reasons for our intolerance of suffering and one is a tragic misunderstanding of God. Many in our country and our neighbor to the south believe that it is God’s responsibility to protect those who trust in Him from suffering. The “Wealth, Health and Prosperity” gospel or the “Word of Faith movement” teach that it is never God’s will that we suffer sickness or poverty. These teachers and those that follow them represent God in a way that makes God small and that makes the “believer” responsible for his/her well-being. According to this misguided understanding of God, my faith is the coinage required to receive the health and prosperity that God has waiting for us.

On the surface, this sounds right, but then if this is the case, god is simply a cosmic vending machine and you and I can get what we want from “this god” if we simply pay up in the currency of faith. Not much faith – not much health or prosperity; a lot of faith and your cancer free, have a swimming pool in the back yard and rive a Lexus. Really?

The God who reveals himself in the Bible isn’t this kind of being at all. This article isn’t the place to give a fuller understanding of God, and I certainly make no claims to understanding God in His fullness. But I am certain from studying the Bible that suffering, pain, and difficulty of every sort are not incongruent with trust in God or in congruent with God’s will. They are not his ultimate will for those who trust him, but all these troublesome realities do fall within God’s will for his children in our present state as citizens of this earth.

The spiritual struggle we face with “the blues” simply reminds us that things are not as they were intended to be. We live in a world that is groaning under the curse that God imposed when Adam and Eve sinned (Genesis 3:14 ff; Romans 8:18-27). This curse will be lifted, the day will come, but that day has not yet arrived. Our hope, the substance and object of our faith is in part that the day will come when there will be no more “death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

So what do we do with our blues? Well, I’m loath to take my theology from pop music and I am certain that the composers of the song that I cited in the introduction didn’t have this in mind, but listen to the last words of the song, “Funny that it seems I always wind up here with you. Nice to know somebody loves me. Funny but it seems it is the only thing to do, run and find the one who loves me…” Now the song writers were contemplating a human relationship, but I would like to suggest that we make God the “you” of the last part of that song. That when we get the blues, we find our way to God, not with a desperate prayer to take the blues away, but with the knowledge that he loves us, that he will not abandon us when we find ourselves in a “funk” and that he is not hurt by, disturbed by or disgusted by the fact that there are times we are down.

You may be thinking – “Yea, I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work.” Well, if what you tried was a desperate prayer expecting God to miraculously change your blues into a high of some sort – no, it probably didn’t work. Is that what we expect of the humans that love us, that we go to them when we are having a bad day and they bake everything better? If it is, I can imagine how profoundly disappointed we are.

When we think of God in this way, we miss entirely God’s desire in relationship to us. God didn’t create us so that he could be our heavenly sugar daddy that gives us whatever we want to make sure we are always happy. God created us so that he could share his love with us. This desire was not eradicated by the Adam and Eve’s rebellion. In fact, God had anticipate (foreseen) their rebellion and had already planned the most magnificent expression of love that exists in the universe. He planned to join humankind in the misery of their sin and take the punishment humankind deserved upon himself, offer forgiveness and make everlasting life a possibility once more.

He graciously (freely) makes this available to us if we will just receive this expression of love, receive Him in Jesus by faith and join him in a life long relationship of humble faith. God wants to join us in our “blue” days, in our down times, in our discouragement and depression. God wants to walk with us, travel the journey together, be our strength and courage in the face of lives challenges, disappointments and he promises that the day will come when we will never feel blue again. But that day is still to come and in order to enter that state we must trust him in our blues.