The Fullness of the Human Struggle

Why do things happen that are so inexplicable? Why does God just not seem to make sense? If people claim our God is all-loving and all-knowing, then why do bad things happen in this world? These are questions that seem to strike at the very core of much of our human experience, especially our recent lived experiences in the midst of a global pandemic and other tragedies that are previously mentioned in my last article. I noted also in my last piece, that I have had the pleasure in my graduate level classes of learning about the Holy Spirit in new and profound ways that has challenged much of my former notions. In these same courses, I recently have been learning more about the human experience and what it means to truly be fully human, especially in the context of following Jesus. For much of my life, I saw Christianity as a rules-based religion where if I did the right things, had the right answers to the hard questions, and lived as if though everything seemed okay on the outside, then I would inherit eternal life. Christianity seemed very black and white with hardly any shade of grey. The human experience was one to be submitted to God since God carries all burdens and is the healer of all pain. This statement is true to an extent but what I’ve come to realize, and question is that what if the human experience, especially the brokenness and pain of our human experience is actually something to be embraced rather than quick to be forgotten or discouraged?

Theologian Henri Nouwen illustrates this in terms of the “human struggle”, which I think is a really powerful term that describes the raw emotion behind our common pain and sufferings. But what is it about the raw emotion that calls for an embrace? And how does "human struggle" become such an accurate depiction? Well, let me explain. For much of the last year, I have been coping with the loss of my father due to a 5-year battle with cancer. Some days I feel as if much of my identity has been shattered and I feel like my life has been separated into broken pieces that I am only beginning to slowly examine. I often stand in bewilderment wondering what I am to do with the broken pieces, coupled with the sandstorm of raw emotions that grief produces. It’s as if some days I feel like my faith in God has been placed into a pressure cooker that is only waiting to explode. This often begs the natural and instinctual response of wanting to run away from the pain which can sometimes feel like we are placed squarely in a vast, foggy wilderness. With no direction or seemingly no way out, the uncertainty as to what lies ahead becomes all the more powerful. These tender and raw emotions follow me much of the day and almost anywhere I go, so when I enter a classroom designed to teach me more about God, I would think that it would be hard to even comprehend some of the claims about the distinctive, loving nature of the divine. But this, like many other situations, is where my thoughts and expectations went wrong.

I was presented a new vision of what it means to be human. I was taught about Jesus’ life on earth through a perspective of Him not just being fully divine but fully human. Jesus engaged with often marginalized fellow humans: sinners, tax collectors, social outcasts, the sick, the poor, those in pain, etc. He came to break down barriers and share the human struggle with those He made an intentional effort to interact with. But it wasn’t just the ministry of Jesus that made this powerful but His eventual coming to terms with the fact that His crucifixion on the cross and the emptying of His self, act as the greatest display of love for others, since it was the most human moment of Jesus’ life. It was Jesus’ willingness to give himself up and bear the weight of humanity’s brokenness, pain and struggle, that served as His greatest source of authority and connection with humankind. When my professor explained this and that the greatest power we have is when recognize the humanity of ourselves or others, then we become more fully aware of the bond that God created when He first spoke our beauty into existence. In essence, to feel the presence of the divine is to embrace our humanness, especially the rawness of our human struggle just like the Son of Man did through his life, death, and resurrection.

For me this was breathtaking, since I was reintroduced to a concept so central to Christianity in a way that actually made more sense and struck through the barriers that my self-defense mechanisms were so used to placing in the midst of grief and raw emotion. As Henri Nouwen described it, the “truly good news is that God is not a distant God, but a God who is moved by our pain and participates in the fullness of the human struggle.” Jesus came to live a life worth imitating and die for us so that our human struggle wouldn’t be empty but would be full.

This concept, in the aftermath of encountering the death of my father, seemed so incredibly foreign. To fully come to terms with this, is a process that will take days, months, years, and maybe a lifetime. But the truth revealed to me is that I have a new perspective on where God is moving in my life. He didn’t answer the questions I originally had. He didn’t provide a concrete roadmap on where I needed to go or what I needed to do. He simply used the people in my life to reveal to me a hard truth, but a sobering truth that offers some light in a place that seemed rather so dark. The light reveals that God is not a distant God, but a God who wants to be with our struggle because He became human to embrace the pain of our struggle. So, if you, like many others in this world, are dealing with an experience that consumes much of the human struggle, you may not find the responses to the exact questions that you are looking to answer. But what you will find, if you embrace the fullness of your humanity, is the truth that you were never meant to do this alone. And as hard it is to trust in something that can seem so incredibly foreign, it is love that will penetrate through the walls, valleys, and darkness of our wilderness and expose a light that was always meant to manifest itself to us. The power and choice we have is to be in solidarity with others and the divine, since Christ came to show that and reveal that to us.

Romans 1:20 “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.”