Has Early-Consciousness Christianity left you passive?

And have you been waiting (a little too long) upon the Lord?

Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

The Secret of the Universe?

About 15 years ago I saw a real life miracle.

I can’t really get into all the details because it’s not my story to tell, and I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it all, but to summarize…

A close, longtime friend of mine was dealing with a medical condition that had no known cure. The condition was often debilitating because of the pain it created. One night this friend told me they had had an experience with the Divine and they were “told” to expect that the condition would soon disappear completely. My friend started telling people this was going to happen. I thought they were a little bit nutso, but about two weeks later I was in the room with the doctor and heard him say that the condition had vanished and he had no explanation for it.

My friend never had pain again.

I have no idea what happened there. Placebo effect? Maybe. My friend and I still talk about it sometimes and to quote their words: Something deep within told me I would be healed, that I should expect to be healed. And so I started believing and telling people that’s what would happen and that’s exactly what happened.

It was an incredible thing to witness. And it almost destroyed my life.

Of course it’s not my friend’s fault or the miracle’s fault for what happened next. I take complete responsibility.

At the time I was new to the Evangelical movement. I had grown up in church since before I could remember, but it was a sleepy Christianity where healing and miracles no longer happened. My understanding was all that stuff had faded away sometime after the first few generations of believers, circa late First or early Second Century.

But as an adult I made some friends who were really into the Evangelical thing and it was very exciting. Speaking in tongues and healing and maybe if we were lucky they’d even throw in some prophecy. I was still skeptical for a while, but then my friend experienced the miraculous healing in the story above.

In witnessing that miracle it suddenly felt as if I’d stumbled upon the secret of the universe. I now believed that the miracles recorded in the New Testament from 2000 years ago could still happen today. I believed God could literally make anything happen. With a little faith God would take care of everything. All I had to do was believe. All anyone needed was the right amount of faith.

And I now had a TON of faith.

I went all in

Looking back I realize that’s when my new worldview began: all I had to do was have enough faith and God would take care of the rest. After all, what could be a more powerful witness to God’s power and righteousness than me demonstrating my faith in him, and in return he’d provide everything I’d need?

And what better example was there than the life of Jesus as laid out in the Gospels?

Jesus was submissive to God. He didn’t fight the mob at Gethsemane. He was silent before the Sanhedrin (at least in some accounts). He chose not to defend himself against Pilate. He allowed himself to be tortured. He was silent before Herod. He allowed himself to be led to the cross. He surrendered to death. And he is presented as the model upon which our lives should be built.

Jesus, take the wheel

But what I perceived as Jesus’s example of submission to God, began to show up as passive approach to my daily life. I turned over all control to God.

I suppose I did the best I could at my job, but I didn’t go out of my way to seek recognition or promote myself because I knew God would promote me in time. I didn’t focus as much on my physical health because I knew God would honor my faith and dedication to him and keep me healthy.

I didn’t work too hard on my relationship with my wife or my child because I knew as long as I read the Bible and did all I could to support our church then God would take care of us. I didn’t focus on my own self-development or my mental health because God would be enough.

I developed what’s called an external locus-of-control, which means I viewed external forces as being responsible for my life and wellbeing. In my case that external force was God. (And sometimes Satan, but that’s another post we’ll eventually get to.)

Anything good that was to occur in my life would now be up to God. All I had to do was be faithful. Pray, fast, read the Bible, give.

Even as I type all this out now it seems completely absurd.

But that’s how I lived my life 100%. I was passive. I was powerless. I was waiting around for God to take care of things on my behalf. Did I take it to the extreme? Probably (because I’m good at that). But there’s a culture of passivity that can form amongst Christians. Sometimes in our personal lives. Sometimes in the world at large.

And anyone who’s spent time in church will recognize it’s not just Jesus who’s used as an example to wait around for God to take care of things. The Old Testament is full of examples. Let’s start with a few OT scriptures:

Psalm 37:7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Psalm 37:9 For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

Psalm 130:5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

Hebrews 6:15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.

Lamentations 3:25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him

Isaiah 40:31 But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength

There are lots of these verses. And we have plenty of other examples too.

Sarah waited for a child. Isaac waited to marry Rebekah. Rebekah waited to have Jacob & Esau. Joseph waited to receive recognition and a position of leadership. Moses waited to become a leader. David waited to become a king. Job waited through hell on earth to have his family and possessions replaced.

I can remember the Old Testament story where the whole strategy of God’s prophet Elijah was to pour water on the altar and wait for God to eventually come down and burn it all up with Heavenly fire. And in the New Testament there’s lots of waiting for Jesus to come back. (Those folks are still waiting, by the way.)

All in God’s perfect timing

And maybe I had the wrong interpretation of the scripture all along. Sitting around, waiting for God to do something. Maybe subconsciously I was looking for an excuse to not move forward. After all taking action can be scary. What if I took action and failed? Maybe subconsciously I was offloading my responsibility to God. I can now own all these possibilities 1000%. I have no issue with admitting the flaws of my younger selves.

Or maybe the scriptural translation isn’t quite perfect and the word “wait” meant something a bit different a few thousand years back. Maybe it meant more like perseverance. I’m all for that. Any life worth living is going to require quite a bit of perseverance. But I’m guessing if I picked up a message of passivity after decades in the pew then I’m probably not alone.

It seems like the solution was always prayer. Maybe you need to pray a little more?

Pray and wait.

But none of that worked for me. My health declined. My relationship with my family was strained. I waited and waited while leaders in our church took advantage of me and many others. When I spoke up about this bad behavior those same church leaders discarded me. I felt shame because no matter how many years I waited on God or how much I prayed my experience of life was only declining.

During this time my faith also began to fail. I had questions that couldn’t be answered. I could see a landscape of Christian leadership that was hypocritical, if not downright corrupt. I felt like my life was declining in so many ways and I had no control. I had handed over all ownership and agency of my life to God and my life seemed like a giant disappointment.

But in fact my life was pretty great from an objective viewpoint. Anyone else could see I had a rewarding job, an awesome wife, an amazing kid, a beautiful home, and a loving family. But I couldn’t access any of it emotionally. I couldn’t appreciate any of it. I was never content.

Soon I hit rock bottom.

Now to be clear it was definitely a privileged sort of rock bottom. I was mostly just depressed. I didn’t want to get out of bed. Didn’t want to go to work. I was a real jerk to be around. I was emotionally absent as a dad. But deep down I knew this wasn’t who I was supposed to be. I knew this wasn’t the life I felt I was meant to live. I knew I wanted more. I knew I had to do something.

In desperation I knew my only option was to take action.

My amazing and patient wife suggested I see a therapist. A therapist? I was skeptical. But I took the advice and to my surprise things almost immediately began to get better. Almost immediately? Yes, I felt better after the very first session.

Within a few weeks I was feeling hopeful again. Within a few months I was creating a new life for myself. I began to regain ownership over my life. I took back responsibility for my life. Responsibility for the health of my relationships. Responsibility for my joy. Responsibility for whether it was a good day or a bad day.

The outcomes I wanted in life began and ended with me.

From there it was a gradual process. Step by step. Taking action. I recall early on announcing that I was no longer going to sit around and wait on God.

It felt defiant. And it was liberating.

Eventually life got much better. My health improved. My relationships improved. I lost my anger. I became a better dad. A better husband. I began to really enjoy my life. I found freedom in many ways.

One of the best things I’ve discovered in the last ten years is how to take action even when I don’t feel like it. Maybe it’s a mundane chore or physical exercise. No one gets excited to unload the dishwasher or take a walk in 20 degree weather. But I just start doing it, even though I don’t feel like it, and usually within a few minutes I’m nearly always glad I did. And the more I do things I don’t want to do, the easier it gets. Eventually the resistance to such things fades altogether, at least most days. (Note: I’m still not psycho enough to take ice baths or cold showers each morning just for the health benefits, but a boy can dream.)

Taking action reduces anxiety. Every time.

Taking action increases our sense of control and allows us to feel like we’re in charge of our life. Life is less likely to happen to us, and begins to happen for us. I know that sounds cliche, like a Tony Robbins quote or something, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Taking action ultimately leads us to a better, happier place.

We have to shift from an external locus-of-control to an internal-locus-of control. We have to take responsibility for our lives 100%. Does bad luck happen? Definitely. We’re all subject to bad luck and good luck. But there is some definite truth that people of action tend to find more good luck, and are much better at dealing with the bad luck.

Another result of all of the above was I eventually found faith again. Not as a Christian in the traditional sense. But as someone who tries to follow the example that Jesus and many other spiritual pioneers have set for us over the centuries. I’m still exploring this path and expect I’ll do so for the rest of my life. These days I embrace the mystery.

It’s also interesting to me that my daily life seems more representative of the example that Jesus set now than it ever was while I identified with being a “Christian.” I’m more patient. I get angry less often. I’m more accepting. I’m more loving. More gentle. I’m more likely to live in the present moment. (Don’t get me wrong. I can still be an impatient assh*le, but those moments tend to be fewer and further between.)

My life changed because I took responsibility. I no longer left it up to God to make me more patient, more present, more loving, more engaged, more disciplined.

My life changed because I took action to get help. To learn skills from people who had already learned to be patient, accepting, present, loving, and content. I took action to heal, to get coaching, to try on different philosophies. I went out of my way to learn about exercise and how to be healthy. To learn new skills at my job. To be present with my family. I learned how to reduce my anxiety. To increase my presence. To increase my power.

I had to learn how to live in this life, in the here and now, rather than daydreaming about a faraway, someday Heaven.

To be clear, all this “taking action” doesn’t mean I don’t rest. Learning the skills of effective rest and recovery was also something I had to take action to do. I had to learn good boundaries, and when to push forward and when to back off.

I also want to be clear that I now realize the historical Jesus was not a passive figure at all. He clearly took a great deal of action. He studied and learned a great deal as a young man. He launched a ministry. He organized a group of close followers. He seemed to be in charge of when and where they went. He had no problem with action.

And neither was Jesus’ teaching to the masses a message of passivity.

It takes tremendous inner work to pray for those who oppress us or act in malice against us. To love everyone as much as we love ourselves.

I would also say that as I’ve begun to uncover and study the esoteric and mystical side of Christianity that it’s becoming clear to me that Jesus never intended the work he did in his lifetime to serve as an excuse for us to sit back and wait to die.

Rather the mystical path of Christianity (and all spiritual paths really) is one of taking continuous action as we work to perfect ourselves over time.

So let me say it again: Jesus was definitely not passive.

He had the insight, courage, and agency to take on his entire culture. He was assertive, even aggressive, in challenging the religio-political norms of his day, which brought him both fame and trouble.

But I now realize that it’s this portrayal of Jesus, especially in those final hours leading up to his execution, that can give us the impression that he was passive.

Nowhere else in the Gospels do we see this nearly hour-by-hour detail of his life, from the Last Supper and Gethsemane, to his arrest and trial, to his crucifixion and final breath. This 24/7 coverage of Jesus’s final hours is absent elsewhere in the Gospels, and it’s likely part of the reason it receives so much focus. Jesus is portrayed in these final hours as having surrendered, and as fully accepting whatever comes next.

Thoughts & Prayers

That’s how I saw Jesus and other examples throughout the Bible. And as I said earlier I believe there’s a prevalence of passivity within churches and Christianity. Sometimes this passivity affects our personal lives. Sometimes this passivity carries over into how we interact with the world at large.

Need an example?

We’re urged to pray for Ukraine. Pray for the women of Afghanistan. Pray for Africa. Pray for the victims of violence. Pray for the families of children gunned down at school.

Prayers do work. They work mightily. But we have to actually pray. We have to pray with emotion and longing that the Divine will intervene to bring comfort and love into this world.

And God help us to actually do something for somebody other than offering up a few thoughts and prayers. An attitude of “thoughts and prayers” is likely why our world is in the mess it’s in right now.

No one’s taking action. They’re too busy praying and thinking. Nobody’s doing.

This is a symptom of the popular Christian mantra that “God’s got this. God’s in control.” It gives Christians the excuse to offload their responsibility in the world. There’s always relief in passivity. Relief in offloading responsibility to someone else, even God.

For the Deconstruction Community

This leads me to a final thought for those in the Deconstruction community.

As I said in an earlier post it’s an exciting time when many have rejected the current Christian Order of today in search of something better, and in doing so have moved into a phase of deconstruction. They’ve been injured by the church and/or grown tired of the hypocrisy. They’ve asked too many questions that their pastors can’t answer. They realize the operating system they’ve been indoctrinated into since they were kids doesn’t actually work that well.

But as I survey the various #deconstruction accounts it seems many of them are stuck. They seem paralyzed, unable to progress or find true freedom. Unable to thrive. I’m bummed out to see how consistently cynical and spiteful some of them can be.

I empathize, because all of this is symptomatic of not only a deep injury, but also a lifetime of handing over ownership of their life to God. They’ve heard pastors tell them for years that everything good comes from God. Even the bad stuff in life is supposed to be this weird combo of what God has allowed for the greater good along with some sort of interference from the devil. They’ve been taught to hope for the patience of Job.

This sort of worldview relinquishes all ownership and agency of the individual, thus destroying their self-confidence to actually do anything on their own in the world. So when someone leaves the church world or finds themselves deconstructing they often have no real operating system for taking control of their life. But this absence of a viable operating system for life is invisible to them.

And so they’re tossed about, day to day, with no sense of control, no sense of power. They’re unable to progress and heal in the way that would be best for them.

And many church leaders capitalize on this powerlessness. Spiritual power and influence have been abused for millennia. Passive people have always been easier to control and abuse. Church leadership has even co-opted the phrase #churchhurt to gaslight and blame the victims. I have personal stories of just how ugly the Church and early-consciousness Christians can be as well. Stories for myself, from close friends, and from hundreds of acquaintances of the manipulation and abuse taking place in churches.

So I understand the cynicism and spite, and how it can be a part of the process. I understand that once we’ve been wounded we often need time to process, to vent, and to be still.

But I want to gently suggest that at some point if we want to really heal, if we truly want to live a life that’s fulfilling and enjoyable, we eventually have to make a shift. We have to take ownership and responsibility for lives moving forward. We have to shift from an external locus-of-control to an internal locus-of-control.

Our wounding is not our fault. But our healing is our responsibility. And taking ownership of our healing is empowering. It takes the power out of the hands of others and allows us to take control. It allows us to take action and begin to change our life.

And so we must seek out resources. Maybe that’s a book or a podcast at first. Maybe it’s therapy or coaching. Maybe it’s finding a community of others that have been through similar experiences and who are now taking action. And if the first book or podcast or therapist doesn’t work for you, then find another one. Keep trying until you find the thing that begins to work.

And as you begin to heal and become healthier you must remain introspective.

Ask yourself what might I do next?

What other actions might I take to create the life I want?

How might I eventually begin to help others who’ve had similar experiences?

And we never arrive. A life of action becomes a life of service. Service to others. Service to our friends. Service to our family. Service to ourselves. We do this as long as we can. We do this until the day we die.

And we create a better world.

You may have been taught that God laid you down in green pastures, that he led you beside the still waters, all to restore your soul; but the reality is still water eventually stagnates.

It’s the rushing water that has the power to carve stone.

There’s still time to make this year everything you want it to be…let’s get moving!

I was still water, held by my surroundings. I am now a river, carving my own path.

-Scott Stabile

If it feels like your life has become a nasty, brackish puddle of water, never forget that you do possess the power to transform it into a beautiful, rushing stream that will carry you to enlightenment.

-Russell Simmons

Have an awesome day! And as always if you found this post interesting or helpful please click the ❤️ button so it can reach others on Substack.