The God Who Forsakes Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We live in a world that almost thrives on the need for closure or an ending. We like happy endings in particular. This is why Hollywood makes so much money, we want to believe that happy endings exist. But let's be honest, life is more like a beautiful piece of quilted patchwork. The colors don't always match. The lines acrosss the quilt don't always line up. And it might be shorter than we anticipated. But, it is life. What if Christianity was meant to be more like the the quilt and less like the Hollywood endings?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2010\/08\/the-god-who-forsakes-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The God Who Forsakes Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We live in a world that almost thrives on the need for closure or an ending. We like happy endings in particular. This is why Hollywood makes so much money, we want to believe that happy endings exist. But let's be honest, life is more like a beautiful piece of quilted patchwork. The colors don't always match. The lines acrosss the quilt don't always line up. And it might be shorter than we anticipated. But, it is life. 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{"id":1051,"date":"2010-08-03T08:16:13","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T14:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/mainlineportal\/2010\/08\/03\/the-god-who-forsakes-us\/"},"modified":"2010-08-03T08:16:13","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T14:16:13","slug":"the-god-who-forsakes-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2010\/08\/the-god-who-forsakes-us\/","title":{"rendered":"The God Who Forsakes Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"We\u00b4ll$ <\/a><\/p>\n

There is freedom only in an ontologically unfinished universe.\u201d \u2013 Zizek<\/em><\/p>\n

have you ever run into a book without an ending? a book that doesn\u2019t come to fruition? have you every heard a storyteller stop half-way through the narrative and end there? have you run into someone who has ever been jilted by the fact that there was no closure in their previous relationship?<\/p>\n

we live in a world that almost thrives on the need for closure or an ending. we like happy endings in particular. this is why hollywood makes so much money, we want to believe that happy endings exist. that happy means all things work out as they are meant to be.<\/p>\n

i think the problem with that is, is it doesn\u2019t always work out the way it should be. and trust me, i am a romantic at heart. i want and believe and crave the pseudo-happy-endings. heck, i am an idealist!<\/p>\n

but let\u2019s be honest, life is more like a beautiful piece of quilted patchwork. the colors don\u2019t always match. the lines acrosss the quilt don\u2019t always line up. and it might be shorter than we anticipated. but, it is life.<\/p>\n

what if christianity was meant to be more like the the quilt and less like the hollywood endings?<\/p>\n

if we learn anything from the interaction between jesus and god on the cross its that god isn\u2019t the end-all-to-be-all. god isn\u2019t the roof to our house. in fact, god is the one who removes the roof to our house. when jesus, in deep physical agony, cries out \u2018my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?\u2019<\/p>\n

jesus is saying \u2018god you have let me down\u2019 or \u2018god you have betrayed my expectations\u2019. jesus (the one that a lot of christians look to as the ontological end to all of humanities needs) is let down by god. notice jesus doesn\u2019t use the word \u2018leave\u2019,but rather \u2018forsaken\u2019, why? people come and go and leave and return, but forsaken is when someone willingly turns their back on you. purposefully.<\/p>\n

in one fail swoop we unlearn all the things we\u2019ve been taught about a god who is always there when we need her and learn about a god who isn\u2019t the \u2018end of the story\u2019, but rather a god who is much like a storyteller who ends the story in the middle of the narrative. or a god who abandons us in our hour of need.<\/p>\n

but maybe that\u2019s just it, our hour of need isn\u2019t an hour of need at all.<\/p>\n

its just an hour that passes.
\nits not the end of the story.<\/p>\n

this god who doesn\u2019t act in our most tragic moment shows us a god who isn\u2019t the \u2018answer\u2019 we think she should be. that all peace, patience, grace and meaning to life doesn\u2019t end in her. but that there is more to the story. or as Bono once sang \u201ci still have found what i am looking for\u201d. this doesn\u2019t mean we abandon god, it means we might have to meet god once again for the first time. it could also mean that rather than seeing god confined to certain spaces, we see god as everywhere. the god in sections. the god who isn\u2019t this solid mass of all existence who resides above us. but is more in preview of itself.<\/p>\n

when we experience god, its not god in his fullness, its preview of a preview. its part of the quilt that is god.<\/p>\n

this whole idea of god being beyond our way of thinking like the prophet isaiah once spoke of is so true when we come to a library like the bible. because we can\u2019t afford to look into its pages and expect it to have the fullness of god. i think even the idea of god is quite ideologically subversive to most of our logic, and if so, then why do we approach this entity with logic and get frustrated when someone\/something elses\u2019 explanation or god herself doesn\u2019t fit the bill?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"