Me, The Scoffer

God,

This will likely be the last time I address you. You never change, do you? You always and forever demand my surrender but I have yet to lay down my arms or offer my heart. Why? Because this relationship is nothing more than a battle that I always lose and which has inflicted so many wounds of disappointment. It is nothing close to a love affair. I count the numerous scars at least once a day, never forgetting, never letting go of their pain-inducing memories. Somehow you think just because you give me a few small joys in life once in a long while (just enough to tease me to keep going) I am supposed to abandon all of my desires, time, and plans for you. They say it is a fearful thing to fall into your hands but I find little to be afraid of. Exasperated and fatigued from all of my striving, I have yielded to my doubts about you and not forbade cynicism from having its way. Since I apparently bring you no pleasure, I will find mine in scoffing at you and your so-called good intentions. Indeed, I have found more delight in scorning you than in you. Accusing you has become my favorite past-time and only hobby. I expend my thoughts and days on questioning your motives and doubting your purposes.

Are you deserving of affection or anything more than derision? I remain unsure despite much retrospection. I have concluded your reasons for unanswered prayer are excuses you only employ to taunt me. I laugh in doubt any time you respond with anything but “No” for I can’t believe would be sincere in showing me goodness. It is all vanity and vexation of spirit. Do my stout words against you weigh more than my value? I guess that is too bad. I demand answers and understandings you will never give, healing you promised but I have never known. You are supposed to be close to the broken in heart but why would I let you near given our history? My heart has been shattered into pieces without number I can’t even find, even if I wanted to offer it to you (which I don’t.)

Some say what I think about you is supposed to be the most important thing about me but I think so lowly of you-both in quality and quantity. I contemplate myself and the affects of your lack of faithfulness continually and contemptuously with no end in sight. I have started to wonder if a relationship with you is little more than an ongoing mutual asking of “What have you done for me lately?!”

Your love is supposed to be the only thing worth living for but I can’t love someone I don’t trust. I trust only my lack of understanding and not you. I have more expectation you will fail me than fulfill your promises- as you have done with so many of the desires most important to me: a slap in the face to the answer of heart broken prayers for healing and restoration…dreams I believe you only find worthy of mocking…dreams that meant everything to me and longings that haunt to this day and won’t stop. I have been forced to accept they will never come true no matter how much I yearn for them. And isn’t that the point- it is no matter what I want or need or how hard I try! All that matters is striving and straining and performing for you, in the futile hopes that one day, after I am totally exasperated and all but dead, you will show grace and give me what I need (never mind the desires of my heart.) I am but a marionette and you are the puppet master making me dance for my supper, all while looking like a fool when I actually try to believe. So many times my heart has screamed, “What about grace!” Is that but a lovely theory or a living reality that makes the difference? Does any of it matter? Do I matter? Are all of my efforts, all of my desires, and all of my life nothing more than vanity?!

There is nothing new under the sun- including the worthlessness of my best efforts and prayers. The passion I once employed in seeking you, believing you, and trusting you were not worth the time and effort. You always wanted more and still do. How often I have found your hand is not outstretched to me in love but a fist closed with what I asked for, daring me to pry it open and take what I need! As if my strength were enough to do so! I imagine your eyes do anything but smile at me- they only smirk at my best efforts to please you- while I collapse from weariness, my faith denigrating to dust, muddied by tears of futility and failure. Yet you awaken me for another day to try again as you smile at my pitifulness while simultaneously commanding me to do more and more and work harder. “Perform!! Dance!! Sing!!! Pray!!! Tell me your longings for the ten thousandth time and try to believe!!! One day, one day, maybe one day I will meet your need but I will not let you know when! I remember everything you have ever prayed and asked for and I didn’t answer. Still, ask and have faith!! Work and perform and dance!!! Ha ha!! Again and again!!!” Am I nothing more than your entertainment? Is my existence nothing beyond a game with no purpose? What does it profit to seek or serve you? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

In the middle of my ranting and raving the thought suddenly came to me. “Aren’t you sorry for what you’ve said?” Sorry for my words? Why would I be sorry?! I am only sorry I couldn’t find more words to tell you how disappointed I am in you. I blame you for everything: for the failures, the disappointments, for giving me hope that only betrayed me, the loneliness, and the unfulfilled longings and unmet needs you apparently don’t care about it. Most of all, it is your fault for making me, giving me breath that is nothing more than wasted energy, a heart that only knows brokenness instead of love, a mind without certainty, a broken spirit and empty soul, and the ability to know pain but never healing. If I am sorry for anything it is you never did what you promised and then condemned me when I stopped believing you.

If I was made for worship, who or what is my god? My feelings, my failures, and frustrations. They receive the bulk of my attention and devotion. In case you wonder why I treat you so poorly it is because you haven’t done what you promised, what you assured me you would do. You let my dreams die but still expected me to believe you. Years spent crawling through broken glass in the desert and finding every imagined oasis a mirage… every misstep and sin a deterrent to what I was desperate for and you commanding I crawl further, despite my bloodied knees and cut hands that can’t even wipe away my tears. Come to find out my best efforts to please you were but filthy rags I wore (and hoped I looked good in.) My faith is seemingly as insufficient and ineffective as our relationship. If I choose to glory, it will be in my lamentations, not your mercy. What’s the point of not giving me what I deserve when you won’t give me what I need?! I have often looked at your promises and been astounded that anyone could make such amazing statements- so amazing that only one who was beyond my wildest imaginations and capability to think could make them- no one else would dare for no one else could fulfill them. Yet, it seems so many of them are nothing more than “if…then” statements that I can’t meet the requirements of. Indeed, my whole life has become an if…then statement.

I have made my throne in the seat of the scornful and ruled with an iron fist of severity and tongue of vitriol. You may have given me breath but it was my efforts, my thoughts, my diligence, that brought victory and fame. I would offer you some gratitude but I am the only one who deserves it. With an insatiable craving for every desire of my heart and thirst for something other than you I have disdained any efforts but mine, abode by only my wisdom, and gloried in my strength and accomplishments. The wrath of my pride has rarely abated, even during my slumber. Let it be known to all: I am an unforgiving man. I have never been accepting of my shortcomings or those of others. I have held grudges since I was young enough to understand them; or at the very least, I acknowledged how one’s imperfections affected or prevented my desires. And I did my best to allow the appropriate consequences to be rendered- for myself or others. Forgiveness, especially for myself, is a foreign language I don’t understand. So it is no wonder I refuse to suffer your choices for me. You have made your choices and demands just as I have, so here we are in a state where neither of us is happy and the endless cycle will continue as I am no more willing to change than you are. Certainly, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Sincerely,

Me, The Scoffer

P.S. I wrote the above some time ago. Now, years later, I have finally exhausted my swearing and complaints. It is with regret of probable misunderstood proportions I compose these admissions. With my breath decreasing in amount and simplicity, these words are growing in importance (at least to me.) I am by no means original in confessing my imperfections- maybe just to the degree I am willing to do so now. All who will read this letter- friend, foe, stranger, or otherwise, know me to the same degree. I have hid much from all, even myself. I have forgotten my life’s meaning in trying to define my own worth. I have chosen my own path, far from everyone, determined to surpass all in accumulation and success; resolved to leave nothing undone as to pertaining to my desires. To have all I wanted was to have life. And to have life was to make the necessary sacrifices and die trying- not only to gain it but keep it. But what do I have when nothing is left? Arms full of vanity and heart empty of purpose or peace.

What is the conclusion of the whole matter? Have I enjoyed life and gained anything worthwhile from my choices? Has my scorning brought me happiness and tranquility? I have been among the most ungrateful who have ever existed, taken all of the credit and left you with all of the blame. I have not cared what my choices cost me, so long as I got what I wanted. But have I truly realized my ambitions? I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor I had labored to do: and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. Why? I did not include you, refused to serve you, declined to honor you. I only paid you any notice to scoff at you, to mock your claim of perfect love and noble motives. I am now at the end of my days and find no hope realized in the past or for the future. I have been nothing less than foolish, nothing more than a life wasted. I have come to see that unbelief is miserable and hopeless and heartless and deadening. Misery is a terrible lover, even if a faithful companion. It costs more than any sacrifice of faith I could ever make. Why have I denied the truth just because I can’t feel you? Why, oh why, have I forsaken you?!

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You may be wondering if this story is true or even how I came across it. It was a handwritten letter containing a stranger’s confessions I found in a used book I purchased at a small bookstore. (The book was Les Miserables in case you were wondering.) I was expecting a well-written and lengthy story but not a final prayer of someone I will never meet. There was no name or date on the letter but yet it impacted me. I couldn’t help pondering what kind of life this man had had which brought him to such an antagonistic state in his heart toward God.

What can we learn from our antagonist? Much, I am sure. There is not time here to expound upon everything. We can at least credit him for his honesty, for it is certain that it is impossible to find God without it. However, his conclusions and attitude leave much to be desired. They deserve no admiration. His choices and assertions are unworthy of a holy God or emulation. His choice to scorn his maker is a foolish one he didn’t realize until late in life. It left him with memories only to be ashamed of and abused the gifts granted him. He leaned too much on his own understanding or lack thereof and glorified himself while vilifying the only one worthy of it. More than anything, I learned what not to do and will pray without ceasing I will not follow in his footsteps.