This post is a contribution from a young man that I have known for several years. He and his family were supportive of me during my ugliest of times. It is the written farewell address that he gave in church prior leaving on a mission for his church. I, personally, was not present, but within minutes of his delivering the talk I had several friends messaging me it was the best missionary farewell they had ever heard. I have no doubt this will become the most popular post on the website...and it should be. It is well thought out, well written, and wholly courageous. This is a man who values his relationship with God enough to be genuine in his candor. He speaks as if he cares what God thinks...not man. That is a RARE quality. If you feel moved to do so leave a comment so that this young man may grasp the worth of his courage. Also, the author has chosen to not name himself here. PLEASE RESPECT HIS ANONYMITY. If you know him, please do not reveal his name in the comments. Any comment that does so will be respectfully redacted. - Todd Baggaley
I’ve decided that I want to speak about not feeling understood in a church. I want to focus on finding a voice – to be authentic – in a church where it seems that everyone has this perfect loving relationship with God, where there is oftentimes a feeling of shame for admitting feelings of anger towards God, for admitting that we’re struggling, for admitting that we’re humans experiencing the pain, shame, and sorrow of the human experience. I want to talk about the very human war of attrition between being authentic, and the pressure we put on ourselves to fit into the mold of the perfect, always happy, never complaining, church member we feel that we ought to be.
I’ve often had trouble feeling belonging within the church. Going to church is oftentimes a real struggle for me. I’d often sit in the pews, listening to everyone talk about how grateful they for the church, how they feel so blessed by God, how this Gospel brings their lives so much happiness. I’d sit in the back and wonder if we’re talking about the same God, if for some reason I was assigned a different God than everyone else when I chose to come to earth. Now I don’t want to mistake this feeling of misunderstood-ness with a feeling of ungratefulness, I surely do have an appreciation for the Gospel for its truthfulness for the purpose it brings to my life: but I can’t say that this church brings me deep happiness, brings me peace; I can’t say that I have a powerful burning love for the church that I feel the need to share with the world. And I don’t want to mistake this for cynicism and pessimism either, there are definitely moments when I do feel the spirit in the church, when I have a feeling that it is true, I cannot deny the fact that I feel that, and cannot deny that this Gospel is true. I feel shame in admitting that to myself, that I don’t feel this love for the church, and happiness from it, that, as I saw it, everyone but me feels. I often feel inadequate that I’m even choosing to go on a mission, while still struggling with my own conversion. It seems as if everybody in the church is reading from this rose-tinted script, and everybody but me knows the lines to it. It is doctrine that struggles, and doubts are part of the human experience, I am well-aware of this, yet why do I feel so ashamed of them if they are so intrinsic to this existence? Why do I feel such a lack of belonging in this church?
I love the story of Jonas and the whale – a story we all have certainly been taught about many times. I see him as a prophetic figure who struggled with the same conflict that I, and many others struggle. I’ll give a quick summary of the story, just to ensure we all have a basic understanding of it.
Jonas was called to preach one of the most wicked peoples to walk the earth, the people in the city of Nineveh. Jonah, knowing that what God commanded of him was going to be an agonizing, difficult mission, fled and boarded a ship. God commanded that there be a storm on the sea and Jonah, recognizing that his fleeing from God was the cause of the storm, cast himself off the boat and was swallowed by a whale. Jonah suffers in the belly of the whale, before being spit up on dry land to teach the people of Nineveh. Jonah preaches to the people, and the people repent, and the people were saved. After saving the city, Jonah feels angry towards the Lord, even to the point of begging the Lord to end his life saying to Him “Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live… I do well be angry, even unto death” (Jonah 4:3 & 9).
I wondered why God chose Jonah, to serve as a missionary for the people of Nineveh, what I imagine would be one of the hardest missions anybody could endure. Certainly, God knew the character of Jonah – a broken man who feels misunderstood and angry at God, a complete juxtaposition to the characteristics that are often valued in missionaries today. God knew that Jonah would be reluctant to accept his call to serve, He knew that Jonah would try and flee from His presence, yet he still chose Jonah. So why did he choose Jonah? Why didn’t God choose the hypothetical person from Jonah’s hypothetical ward who bares his testimony every fast Sunday about how wonderful the church is, who does family history and watches general conference for fun… why didn’t he choose the person who would simply be perfectly submissive to God’s command? God could have completely avoided the whole messy “whale swallowing Jonah” situation if he had chosen someone besides Jonah. From a logistical standpoint, God made a completely illogical decision by calling Jonah to serve as a missionary for the wicked people of Nineveh. Why in the world would God chose a man so angry, so broken by God?
But maybe the people of Nineveh needed somebody broken like Jonah to save them. I don’t think the people of Nineveh would have listened to the person preaching about how wonderful life will be with the Gospel. If God had sent the archetypal missionary, the people of Nineveh would not have felt understood by him. Certainly the typical joyful archetypal missionary is doing nothing wrong, he would teach the people correct doctrine, teach them the joy of repentance, teach them everything the typical missionary is supposed to teach. Yet despite this missionaries best efforts to teach the wicked people of Nineveh, I can’t imagine him falling anything but short. These people wouldn’t want to hear all the doctrine about the joy of repenting, in fact I imagine a part of them might feel repulsed by it. What right does this typical missionary, who has no understanding of the struggles of the people of Nineveh, have to be telling them to repent? I think what the broken and misunderstood people of Nineveh needed was someone who could understand them for the broken, tormented people they were. Jonah understood what it was like to be human, he understood what it’s like to be angry towards God, he understood what it’s like to be buried alive in the sorrows of this existence – I think that is why God chose Jonah to serve the people of Nineveh – because Jonah knows what it’s like to have a raw, and authentic, and deeply flawed relationship with God. Nineveh’s people needed someone who was human, someone who felt that their struggles were understood. Maybe the most powerful tool for a missionary isn’t based in knowing doctrine, but it is the ability to be broken enough to understand another’s suffering, and just broken enough to see the beauty in it.
Right before I started my first semester at BYU I mentioned to a family friend that a mission was something I was considering. This friend, she has a fair share of struggles, including taking care of a severely handicap child. Her struggles have caused her to become at odds with the church. Paraphrasing her thoughts on missionaries and the church, she said something to the likes of…
“When my husband and I see missionaries out on the streets, we’ll look at each other and laugh at them. We laugh because they’re just so naïve, they don’t understand what it’s like. We’ll laugh at those smiles that they all have. They don’t understand what it’s like to feel abandoned and yell at God in anger every night. What right do they have to be teaching ME, when they don’t understand what it’s like, when they all just regurgitate the same doctrine over and over…”
I want to dig deeper what she said, because I think this feeling of misunderstood-ness is a common catalyst when people chose to leave the church, and a reason that our church is often view with such absurdity from non-members. When this family friend expressed her thoughts, my first instinct was to try and come up with some doctrine, some scripture, maybe share some morsel of my testimony, which might make her somehow change her worldview to fit mine – I think this is a natural instinct for everyone, it is natural to try and provide evidence to make others view the world as we do. But as I thought about it, she was right… what right do I have to be telling her how to see the world, when I have such a lack of understanding of her worldview, her struggles? If I were to go ahead sharing worn-out doctrine to her, sharing a testimony about the joys of the gospel, this would just deepen that wound, that is the feeling of being marginalized by the gospel – all it’s doing it kicking her when she’s already down. What she needed was a moment of catharsis, for someone to simply say “I can understand where you’re coming from”. What she needed was a human, not a saint.
I think that is one of the many flaws in the culture of the church – and I’ll differential church from Gospel, because although our church is based on a perfect doctrine, the church is flawed. I imagined that family friend sitting in a sacrament meeting and how out of place and misunderstood she must feel listening to people talk about how grateful they are that God gives us trials to make us stronger. I imagined how Jonah might feel misunderstood listening to a talk about how being submissive and obedient to God will bring us joy and peace. It’s as if all the dizzying positivity and well-worn doctrine in the church that brings many people comfort, is the same force that ostracizes many people from the church. Why is It that there is such a juxtaposition of reaction in regard to our positivity and perfection centered church culture? Why can a person’s testimony bring the spirit to one person, and bring feelings of marginalization to another?
This is obviously a deeply complex issue within the church, but I think a lot of this issue of unintentional marginalization and feelings of misunderstanding stem from a lack of authenticity – both authenticity regarding our relationship with God, and within the church and ward itself. This church has conjured a culture that seems to regurgitate conclusions, instead of sharing struggles. Share your struggles, not your conclusions. Members of the church often share rose tinted conclusions because it’s easy, there is comfort in avoiding uncomfortable struggles: but it is easy at the expense of authenticity. There is no reason we shouldn’t be able to admit anger towards God, no reason we shouldn’t be able to admit that we are doubting, no reason we shouldn’t admit that life is oftentimes brutally soul crushing. I believe in a God that favors authenticity, rather than mediocrity. There are a lot of people out there searching not for somewhere where they can listen to someone preach promises of positivity, but for a place of cathartic understanding – where struggles are shared openly.
I find that I lack that same authenticity in my relationship with God. In my prayers, I often find that my voice is drown out, and I say my prayers as if from a script. I thank God for the same things, I ask for the same things, and I oftentimes in retrospect recognize that I didn’t mean what I said. There is a lack of humanness, and my voice is drowned out when calling to God. I do this because it is easy – it’s easy to lie to myself and to God that I’m happy to be a member of this church all the time, but it is excruciatingly difficult to admit to God when you’re doubting, when you feel angry at God and like Jonah, you just want to run away. Having that raw relationship with God, is exhausting. In the words of Enos, it is a wrestle before God (Enos 1:2). Our relationship with Him is exhausting at times, sometimes filled with aggression, filled with periods where I feel the desire to abandon Him. I often don’t feel like a child of God, I feel more like the moody teenager of God that is just angry with our Father in Heaven all the time. There is value in admitting those feelings to God, there is value in that raw wrestle with God, there is value in facing those difficult human emotions. It is in those often-painful moments with God, that He reveals his character a little more to us, and we become a little closer to Him, when we feel a little more understood by Him in this oftentimes seemingly dark world. We need to be honest with ourselves and with God; we cannot lie to ourselves out of comfort.
I realize that this is a farewell talk and the talk is supposed to be about me and my mission, so I’ll wrap it up by talking about me. Preparing to get ready for a mission has been tough. I want to repeat it again, because I didn’t imagine I would struggle as much as I have; preparing for a mission is really tough. It’s hard going to friend’s farewell talks, and listening to them talk about how excited for their mission they are, how they know it’s going to be the best decision of their lives… I don’t feel that way at all. Right now, all I feel is scared, and inadequate, and anxious, and dread and thinking “what the heck am I doing signing off two whole years of my life to live in a foreign country where I’m going to struggle with the language for months, where I’m going to at some point have a companion that I’m going to want to sock in the face. What I am doing makes absolutely no sense…” I can completely sympathize with Jonah when he wanted to run away after being called to serve, I really from the deepest part of my soul can understand. I wish I had that gift of positivity where I could look on the bright side and be in a constant state of excitement for my mission, but right now, I can’t say that I want to go on a mission. I do know that it is the right thing to do, which is why I’m going. I sometimes wish that I didn’t know that a mission was the right thing so I could just avoid all this struggle of going on one: I wish it were as simple as “I don’t want to go on a mission, so I won’t go”. Sometimes the knowledge that a mission is the right thing to do feels like a curse, as if it binds me to do something that will make me miserable.
I do know that it is okay that I feel this way though. I feel scared to leave, and that is perfectly okay. I don’t know if I have a testimony that everything will work out in the end, but that’s normal to feel. I feel angry at God sometimes that it seems that God gave every departing missionary except me the desire to serve, I am okay with admitting that. Thomas doubted, Jonah ran from God, and I am scared to go on a mission. I’m okay admitting that I’m human, that I feel angry at God sometimes, that I feel misunderstood in the church.
Maybe there is an aspect of imperfect humanness in perfection itself. Maybe the purpose of this whole Gospel isn’t to be perfectly happy and to be perfectly submissive. Maybe the Gospel is more plain and simple than that, maybe all we need to do is to be perfectly human. To be mindful of our fears, our longings, our dread, our inadequacies, our heartache, and to use that brokenness to be the most beautiful, flawed, loving, doubt filled, understanding, human, peoples we can be. Maybe that is what makes our Gospel so plain and precious and simple.
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