Bringing my cynicism before God
Cynical.
The word reverberated in my mind at 4am while I stumbled half-asleep to my infant’s room to feed him back to sleep. This usually seems to happen in the middle of the night. I wake from a dream and my mind, while in rest, surfaces something really important.
As on this night, God was revealing something in my heart that was buried deep below, but couldn’t rise to the surface until I had laid still long enough.
The word cynical was being connected to an experience earlier that previous afternoon when I overheard my husband on a work call listening to a training on how to walk by the power of the Holy Spirit. As I listened to the trainers teach the content my heart burned with suspicion. Did they really believe what they were teaching? Were they paying lip-service to biblical ideas but privately living a completely different life?
God was revealing to me the amount of cynicism in my heart toward other Christians. My attitude was bleak, imagining they were being ruled by their worst instincts of selfishness and image posturing.
I knew where my cynicism was coming from.
It was the lasting impact of hurt in ministry seeing people (mostly leaders) who claim to follow Jesus but whose actions don’t match their words:
A leader in ministry, overseeing many on the mission field. Their decisions deeply hurt many who served overseas but they didn’t want to take personal responsibility for their leadership. Some of those hurt have even drifted away from the faith they once held dear.
A leader who says one thing in front of crowds, but then abuses their wife behind closed doors. Yet when confronted, they always seem to play the victim, shifting blame onto others.
A person in my bible study claimed to be a “strong”, well educated Christian but sought arguments and division in every conversation. They believed everyone else was “wrong” and they alone had true gospel insights which were “a different gospel” (in their own words). Then when they were confronted about this they verbally attacked others, yelling and refusing to engage in conversation. It left me wondering, what is really going on here?
A pastor who is supposed to shepherd and care for his congregation is really just a bully who demeans, attacks, and belittles members of their own congregation and other Christians.
Are people really who they make themselves out to be?
“I can’t trust any Christian institution.”
I sat across from my friend feeling sad. I knew what she had walked through. To have been let down and hurt by ministry leaders at such a deep level seemed to leave a lasting scar and wounding that prevented her from willingly placing herself in a position whereby others had any sort of spiritual leadership or oversight over her.
There’s absolutely no way that when Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:18 that, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” he had this reality in mind. A reality of church and ministry leaders reflecting more of Satan’s work than God’s. It seems like the gates of hell are prevailing: becoming more and more powerful while God’s church withers.
For my friend, cynicism seemed to have the final say.
I bring my questions to God:
Why are you allowing this to happen?
Why are you allowing people to be wounded by those who are supposed to represent you?
Can we trust anyone?
Is there goodness and truth and integrity and safety amongst your “people”?
Will you bring healing to my friend’s life?
Will you restore her faith in you?
In the words of John Mark Comer, to follow Jesus is to apprentice under him. Essentially it means to “organize your entire life around three driving goals: Be with Jesus; Become like him; Do as he did” (Practicing the Way, 10). When someone claims to be a disciple (or apprentice) of Jesus, how can I trust they really follow Christ? Do they spend time with Jesus? Are they becoming more like him overtime? Do they do as he did?
As Jesus teaches in Matthew 7:15-20 we are to assess if someone is really from God based on the fruit (or impact/results) of their words/life/works. One way to assess a person’s “fruit” could be through the lens of those questions above that JMC writes about in his book Practicing the Way.
But sometimes it’s really hard to assess the fruit or lasting impact of a person’s life. It can take many years to see patterns and allow what is hidden to be revealed. People can be deceiving.
When I realize I was deceived by someone who claimed to follow Jesus, I easily feel shame and disorientation. Was I foolish? Was I stupid? Is it my fault that someone else deceived me?
My heart desperately wants to know:
Is it possible to feel safe and secure in other’s presence when they claim to follow Jesus?
I think about Jesus’ first disciples. Eleven men, Jesus’ best friends.
They were gathered with Jesus the night before his death sharing a meal together and receiving what would be Jesus’ final teachings before his arrest later that night. One man was missing.
John 13 describes Judas Iscariot getting up and leaving the dinner. He left to betray Jesus by telling the Jewish leaders where he was so they could arrest him with the intention of killing him. Jesus knew he would be betrayed and that Judas would do it.
But the rest of the eleven didn’t know. Even though Jesus had just told them one of them would betray him, and demonstrated who it was by giving Judas the morsel of bread, they still thought Judas got up and left the dinner for another purpose (John 13:21-30). Very likely they couldn’t fathom that one in their inner circle would deceive them and betray the very Messiah that they had committed their lives to follow and learn from.
I wonder how Jesus’ disciples felt after Judas’ betrayal.
Did they struggle with trusting others?
Did they feel wary as they built the church?
Did they battle feelings of cynicism as they spent the rest of their lives building God’s kingdom?
After Judas leaves, the next four and a half chapters of John are devoted to Jesus’ final words to his friends before Judas returns and Jesus is arrested in John 18. Much of those final words from Jesus are words of comfort and preparation for what is immediately to come: Jesus’ death on the cross and all that would follow.
Jesus tells them in John 16:31-33,
“Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Even when he knows everyone will scatter and abandon him, Jesus offers them words of comfort: he will never be truly alone, the Father is with him. Jesus offers words of peace. Jesus offers himself: “In me”. Even though in the world they will experience suffering and hardship and betrayal just like he does, they can take heart. Jesus’ upcoming death and resurrection is him overcoming the world.
I wonder how Jesus’ words here helped his eleven disciples process and reframe their relationship with Judas the deceiver and betrayer after all this takes place.
Even in the moments that seem full of darkness and evil. When they are betrayed by others, and even abandon their Lord themselves, Jesus was never truly alone. They remain in him, and have full access to his peace. They can take heart and be encouraged––Jesus has overcome sin and darkness and evil. They don’t have the final say, he does.
I’m learning how to bring my feelings of cynicism to God and lay it down at the cross. The same cross whereby Jesus offered his life in exchange for those who deceived and abandoned him. What a reversal, a total scandal. To be deceived by those who claim to follow Jesus with their words but utterly do not with their actions, it does hurt. There is grief, loss, and need of comfort and repair. But those feelings of cynicism should not be the end of the story. They should not be allowed to shape and mould me. They should not completely overcome me. Instead I am to look to Jesus who though he was utterly deceived and betrayed offers encouragement and more importantly, himself.
“Take heart,” he says. “I have overcome the world,” he promises.
I thank God for his grace that I don’t feel cynical about the leaders and people who are in my local church. If I did, I would probably consider drifting away from my faith like others I know. If I didn’t have one healthy gospel-grounded community it would be hard to see hope in gathering regularly with God’s people and putting myself out there vulnerably in community to know and be known by others.
In my vocational ministry setting I feel hopeful. I work with lovely people in my close inner circle. But I’m reminded that no matter who I work alongside or am exposed to, my peace does not come from others and their actions. My peace comes from Jesus and I have full access to it.
Some questions I’m pondering and want to bring into my ministry work:
How can I lay down my cynicism instead of allowing it to take hold and shape me?
Are there specific people I need to have conversations with to seek peace and reconciliation?
How can I engage vulnerably with those I serve with? Can I be honest about my wounding while also wanting to trust that God is present and at work in this context?
Can I ask people thoughtful questions to understand them more personally instead of just make assumptions or jump to quick conclusions?
What is God inviting me to trust him with?
Do I believe God is still good, present, and at work even when those intending to represent him completely fail? Or don’t seem to really follow him at all?