If I did not make it clear, this is not a Christmas post. That’s probably what you were expecting, and I did try to write one. But I just couldn’t get my head around it enough to finish. It’s been a weird Christmas season: our decorations are all in storage, it’s way too warm, and I’ve just had a lot on my mind, you know? I do love Christmas but it really snuck up on me this year and I didn’t get around to writing anything deep and profound about it. Maybe next year I’ll write about it and whether it ends up being deep and profound or not I’ll leave up to you.

Actually, this week was pretty difficult for me so I’m going to write about that instead. Lucky you!

Have you ever been repeatedly, deeply disappointed? I have. If you have too, you’re probably familiar with a very specific feeling of numbness. I am. We’ve been here before, we’ll probably be here again, so let’s turn off and step aside and emotionally remove ourselves as far as possible to protect ourselves. Sometimes, in traumatic situations this is a knee-jerk, subconscious reaction necessary to survive. That is the grace of God allowing us to protect ourselves from further harm. I am not talking about those times. I’m talking about those other times when we allow it to happen. We see it happening. We watch ourselves turn our metaphorical back on the people or situations that caused it, intentionally doing nothing. We just don’t want to deal with it anymore. So we watch it trickle by, hiding in the corner until enough time has passed that we can safely step back into some semblance of normality, pretending it never happened.

This is me right now. Floating along in a bit of a haze, kinda numb, feeling weary and depressed.

So I’m here to say, if this is you too-

Hang out there as long as you need. Give yourself that emotional bubble. It wasn’t fair what happened. You know that. One day everyone will know it, and then you’ll get the recognition you deserve. Do whatever you need to do to feel better. Take a you-cation. You deserve it.

Just kidding.

(Gosh I hope you’re still reading, otherwise I’ve just left you with very one-dimensional and usually bad advice.)

(Please keep reading.)

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with a you-cation. Sitting by myself in a cozy coffee/book shop in a strange city with a warm golden milk and a brand new book in my hands while it rains outside, wearing something so cute I one hundred percent don’t even own it at the moment while people-watching the heck out of strangers? Definitely yes. Sign me up IMMEDIATELY.

However.

There IS something wrong with running away from your problems. It’s almost exhaustingly cliché. How many bazillion movies and books have been written about someone running away from their problems only to find that they are themselves their biggest problem, and you can never run away from yourself after all, surprise!

I’ve been reading When God’s Ways Make No Sense by Dr. Larry Crabb, and while I’m only on page 52 and it’s a little early for glowing recommendations, I’ve already had to go back and re-read a couple sections because it’s just that good, so I’m going to glowingly recommend it.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned so far is that running away from our problems often means that we’re not really running from our problems, we’re just running from God.

Dr. Crabb uses the example of Jonah. Jonah was given by God a very specific task: go share God with the Ninevites. God knew how sinful the city was, and rather than destroy it outright, He wanted to give them a chance to repent and be saved from destruction. Jonah didn’t like this because Nineveh was one of Israel’s biggest enemies and he’d literally rather see them destroyed by fire out of heaven than give them any opportunity to repent. Wouldn’t be a good look for him as Israel’s prophet to be trekking over to Nineveh. So without saying a word to God he just up and left, hitching a boat ride to Tarshish, on the complete opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea from Nineveh. En route, he falls asleep on the ship. He probably thought, “God can’t say anything to me if I’m asleep” and then found himself a cozy corner and willed himself to sleep. He must have forgotten that there were other people on that ship, because when God brought them into a dangerous storm the sailors woke him up and that is when God directed everyone’s attention to Jonah.

(Spoiler: Jonah gets swallowed by a fish, finally goes to Nineveh, puts in literally the least amount of effort possible in preaching the gospel, the city repents and Jonah pouts, still hoping to watch them get engulfed by heavenly flames. None of this relevant to my point, I just thought you might want to know how it ends.)

Jonah didn’t like the way God was running things. It made him uncomfortable and created some problems for him, so he tried to run all the way to Tarshish.

Sometimes I don’t like the way God is running things. It makes me uncomfortable and causes problems for me. I know He’s God, His ways higher than our ways and all that, but if He could just make a little more sense to me that would be great. (When will everyone learn that this is all about me??)

I’d like to very gently suggest that this numbing; this dumbing down; this hiding in the corner; this sleeping on the ship to Tarshish is all part of running away. God is concerned with our heart, and when we hide it from Him by switching off we are unintentionally running away.

So Dr. Crabb suggests that instead of running, we tremble and trust. Tremble, because we are realizing the magnitude of what it means for God to be infinitely outside of our understanding. Trust, because He knows what He is doing.¹ As Abraham asked, “‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’” (Gen. 18:25)

The answer, of course, is yes.

I would like to take a moment and clarify that I do not think rest or space are never a good idea. Occasionally, we do need some rest and space. Occasionally, we should just leave the entire situation behind. But rest and space and leaving are never the destination and if we try to make it so we will, ironically, not find the rest we’re looking for. Eventually God will direct our attention inward to the difficult and dirty things happening in our own heart; it is only then that we can experience rest, not in who we are but in who He is. (See how we’ve circled back to the tremble and trust part?)

Are you in this difficult situation because of obedience to God, or not? I happen to know for myself, I am here because of obedience. So for me, I need to feel these uncomfortable feelings. I need to tremble and trust, and let God root out the sin in my heart. And maybe you do, too.

How magnificent it is to serve a God who is so powerful He does not just make our problems disappear. He leads us gently and intentionally through them, for our transformation and His glory.

P.S. This post probably comes off a little more chaotic than usual. (If not, do me a favor and don’t tell me.) Sorry about that. This was a hard one to write and I distracted myself when things started feeling a bit difficult by adding in some flair. Like how I wrote this post-script half way through the actual post itself as a distraction. Call it coping. Call it annoying. Call it “hey you should probably get an editor.” Whatever. This is a piece of my brain here and I’m not going to edit the personality out of it. This is where I’m at. Enjoy, or not. Okay, let me go back and finish the actual post.

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1. Crabb, Dr. Larry. When God’s Ways Make No Sense. Baker Books, 2018. ↩︎