In college, I did a lot of ministry that was forward-facing and gave me a lot of attention. I love attention. Or at least, I thought I did, but by the end of college, I didn’t like the attention as much.
Let me tell you of the glory days. My major went from piano performance to communication, because I was alright at piano, but not good enough to make money doing it. Communication, on the other hand, was something I excelled in. In early high school, I had long debates with my friends about the Trump administration whilst keeping my cool; I could think on my feet, I was witty. I always had a good joke the teacher liked.
And doing college ministry, it multiplied tenfold. I was a ministry leader for over 30 incredible guys who led Bible study small groups in the dorms. Still think about them and how amazing it was that even though I was their leader on paper, they taught me far more than I ever taught them. Over the course of three years of doing this ministry, I was connected to pretty much everyone on our enormous campus. Further, I could come up with something that sounded spiritual for any problem, peddling profundities and sophistry like a budget modern-day Aquinas. I guess that nowadays, the part of me that wants to sound smart writes articles.
For lack of a humble term, I was famous. I would walk down the halls of our enormous campus; someone always knew my name, they asked me about the ministry. They were always laughing at my jokes. Toward the end of college, my coursework demanded three speeches a week. I got to a point where I would jot down my outline on a napkin five minutes prior to me going to the front. And I got great grades, because I knew how to capture attention.
Unfortunately, attention captured me. I was addicted. They say with addictions that you chase a dragon. The first time you hit a cigarette, you get that soothing and energizing hit of nicotine that you want again; but that same first hit never returns. I quickly became overly exhausted. There was just too much pressure I wasn’t good at handling. And I needed to do it all in a way that looked good and made everyone like me, which makes everything 10x harder. Plus, I had the aforementioned girlfriend who taught me all the stuff I didn’t want to know about myself.
By my senior year, as much as I loved what I did, I was totally checked out. The attention was never enough, and even if it was enough, it was never delivered right. I resented people who were on the worship team, because they got more attention than me. There was always someone who had a higher priority. (There’s a guy in the Bible who was consumed by his desire for attention and glory, though his name presently escapes me.) I left college unbelievably grateful for my opportunities, and terrified of what would come next.
And frankly, terrified is the correct emotion for what would happen next. The breakup launched me cleanly into a job where I spent a year of my life alone in a room for nine hours a day, taking calls from angry parents, back-to-back, all day, all workweek. I now have more respect for call center agents than I could ever have dreamed of having in my life.
I got into new hobbies, like drinking, staying up too late, and wondering if this is what adult life would be like forever. In the dead of winter, I started to seriously wonder if my life had any real value at all. I went to church during this time, but my time there was a haze of feeling like the promises, character, and goodness talked about in the front was real at all for the guy in the back switching the slides on the projector.
Were it not for that community, I don’t know where I would be now. I learned that sometimes, Christians are just drowning. Sometimes they have weights on their feet they choose not to take off which pull them under. But sometimes, they’re just drowning, and the best anyone can do is to just keep throwing them the life rafts of truth far enough and often enough that they might be able to hold onto one for five minutes. And sometimes, the worst thing you can do is reprimand them for drowning, because they’ll start to wonder if the bottom of the lake is better than the air.
Because God limits Himself to honoring our free will, He takes up the monotonous business of telling us things repeatedly until we believe they are true. How often is it the case that when you question spiritual hardships, you hear the answer (whether you like it or not) everywhere in your life? But those answers can sound so utterly ridiculous.
The process of coming to a heart-level understanding of truth looks less like conquering an enemy, and more like being a complete fool. The more lies you believe, the more foolish you feel when correcting them. Show me a person who hates themselves and wants to change it, and I’ll show you a person who is blasting Michael W. Smith in their car and belting truths to their air conditioner. Show me a person who is changing their view of their body, and I will show you a person who looks at themselves in the mirror, smiles slowly, and mutters “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” every time, even if they don’t believe it at all. I can go on about the crazies who are putting oil in the shape of a cross on their doorposts, reading positive affirmations before bed with their bifocals, and taking communion with a blueberry and milk. Growth looks ridiculous.
The process also invariably takes courage. Your lies protect you, and breaking agreement with them feels like breaking the rules. In fact, it usually feels like breaking God’s rules. Growth usually requires you to wade the temptation of shame for your new beliefs. People who have gone their whole life believing that God thinks they are worms feel like they are rejecting their civic duty of self-loathing and feel as though accepting their true identity — unconditionally loved regardless of performance — is arrogant, prideful, or distasteful in some morally corrupt way.
I mention all of this because it’s becoming clear to me that because of the current state of fear and shame-based Christianity, people who want to discover their true identities in Christ require an increasingly controversial set of beliefs and a spirit of holy rebellion against the more widely held beliefs in modern evangelicalism.
It’s also fair to say that the attacks on your identity as a child of God are more dangerous and troublesome in church than they are out of them. We find people deceived, not because of a widespread liberal political campaign, but because of subtle emphases in our local Bible studies, the counsel of a pastor, and the advice of a friend.
Truth feels like lies when you’re deceived. Our sin nature is not so much the truth of our identity as it is our propensity to believe and inherit lies. The Biblical idea of iniquity being the bending of something out of shape, assumes there is a shape that was correct prior to it.
I have seen many Christians run from the voice of God, many run to church. Some run to work. I have a friend who says he can’t take a day off, because it makes him too anxious. Why would relaxing make you anxious unless there’s something you’re avoiding addressing internally? Even if we work 18 hour days and crash onto our pillows, these specters show up in our dreams. They show up on our lunch break. They show up while we are shoveling the mulch. We are all acknowledging this funny quirk of life, that it never relents on you dealing with the tougher parts of your soul. You take you with you.
It’s a scary state of affairs. Think about it. My Christian college and church, both with concentrated, coordinated effort, could not get me to believe the truths of God. They couldn’t help my attention addiction. They couldn’t stop the drinking or get me to see who God made me to be.
Do we blame churches? Do we blame colleges? Do we blame the institutions? Friends maybe? Family?
I marveled that God would pull me from my fame and down into the pit of my call center job. Put an extraverted 23-year-old guy in a room for nine hours everyday and tell me how that fella comes out. He’ll come out hungover for work. He’ll bring White Claws in a thermos to his youth group.
I realized God was ripping me away from other people. Although it couldn’t have been everything, it felt like everything I had been neglecting from my past had finally passed the baton to my heart, short-winded and exhausted.
If I were a better writer, I would now cleanly tell you exactly why that was all a good thing. I do think it was a good thing, but that year was miserably difficult for me. Fortunately, God is a great writer. I sometimes wonder if I needed a year of being completely alone and miserable to detox me from the year of being surrounded by people, attention, and the need for approval eating away at my soul. I came out of that season of life with unconventional beliefs about God’s grace and perspectives on Christian living, most of which have been largely confirmed in this new season of life. I felt like God had reintroduced me to myself.
“Hey Waylon. Wanted to introduce you to Waylon.”
“Yeah, I already know this guy. He’s uh… me…”
“I know you think you know him, but did you realize that he’s 23 now?”
“Oh yeah, I guess we may have not been caught up to speed on that, huh?”
“No, you really haven’t. He still picks his nose, but honestly, most of him has changed.”
“Really? He just looks a little older.”
“Well, he’s learned a lot. He’s been through a lot more now.”
“Uh. Okay. . . great. . . so . . . why are you reintroducing me to him? I happen to be him so… it’s not all too helpful.”
“Oh. Simple really.”
“. . .”
“He needs your help. Right now, someone is trying to destroy his life. They want him to believe he’s worthless. There’s no easy way to put this but . . .
. . . they want him dead.”
“Oh. . . that sucks.”
“Yeah. You should care more about it. But you don’t . . .
. . . because you hate him.”
“No I don’t! How could I hate myself? Isn’t my desire for things to change evidence that I love myself?”
“. . . Who’s John?”
“Oh, John’s a good friend of mine. Love that guy. He’s always been there for me. He’s like a brother. Just helped him move.”
“Did you want to?”
“What?”
“Did you want to help him move?”
“Not particularly . . . but that’s just how it is . . . I was just glad I got to spend some time with him before he leaves to go overseas.”
“So, was it a sacrifice?”
“I mean, I guess you could put it that way. But I don’t really look at it like that. I just want to spend time with John. He’s a good friend of mine.” “I’m . . . going to miss him.”
“And miss him you will.”
“. . .what’s your point?”
“You spend time with your friend, you sacrifice for him. You do this because you love him. If you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t care he was moving at all. You wouldn’t put in any effort.”
“I think I see what you’re doing here. The difference is, John’s a good man! I’m… uh… nothing like John…”
“Who said John was good?”
“Well… he…”
“Who said you were bad?”
“God. God did.”
“Really?”
“Well, I guess not directly. But don’t I have a sin nature? Two dogs to feed?”
“Who said anything about dogs?”
“Well, the preacher man did. You know, the sin dog and the Holy one?”
“There’s Holy dogs now?”
“No, you’re not getting it. I’m saying I’m a sinful person. That’s my nature.”
“That’s a heavy weight to carry, isn’t it? Especially when John’s doing a better job starving his sin-dog. Just called his Holy dog over actually. We are concerned for his health.”
“What? Are you messing with me? I can’t tell if you’re being serious.”
“Yeah, John’s Holy Dog is obese.”
“. . . Hey God, I’m sort of going through a crisis here, can you . . . be serious?”
“I can try. Here’s a question for you…”
“. . .”
“Are you wearing clothes right now?”
“Yeah. Obviously.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be naked.”
“Who told you that you were naked?”
Welcome to Between You and Me. It’s called that because I ask that we keep this between us two. A lot of these things are quite personal, y’know? Wouldn’t want these things floating around on the internet where Christians can whip my words with the Bible, would we?
But it’s also called Between You and Me because there is a lot between me and God. There’s a lot between God and me and all of us, isn’t there? This book is an attempt to name those things so they can be healed. One chapter at a time.
Waylon Woody is a writer and minister living in West Milford, NJ.
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