What is your goal?

When I was little, our family friends graciously let us stay at their house upstate in the summers and at Christmastime. The house rested between a flowing stream where we could climb over rocks and swim, and a huge field to ride four wheelers on. The property was about 200 acres, which gave us the opportunity to do a lot of exploring. Most of my favorite childhood memories involve that place.

Leading up to the house was a super long driveway. Driving up that gravel road in the summer was one of the best parts of being there – we’d turn off the main road and start making our way up the driveway accompanied by the sound of the roaring river on the right side. I’d stick my head out the window and smell the woods and water – a rare opportunity for a city kid from Brooklyn. Driving up the road in the winter was a different story. Blanketed by snow and ice, the driveway quickly became an obstacle for our minivan, and I have many memories of our car halting to a stop in multiple feet of snow seconds before reaching our destination. On days like those, it felt so frustrating to be so close to the goal only to be stopped short and end up disappointed. We’d planned the trip for days, packing up food, deciding which clothes to bring, and (somehow) fitting two weeks of clothes and food into the car along with the five of us and our dog.

If you learned that you’d be driving up the driveway forever and never get to the destination, would you still want to drive up the driveway? If you knew that you’d get stuck, not reach the goal, and be unhappy, would it be worth it? Picture your life as the road. You’ve travelled so far just to be stopped short and end up disappointed. Life without God as the goal is like driving up the driveway forever and never making it to the house. No matter what you did to try to get there, how carefully you packed and planned, you would still end up getting stuck in place – frustrated and angry that you could never reach a satisfying and fulfilling end to your journey.

I think one of the thoughts on everyone’s mind right now during the midst of all of this suffering is, “How could a good God possibly allow so much hardship?” We are so quick to blame the suffering and sin of the world on Him, but how many good things do we give Him credit for? Have you stopped to thank Him as much as you’ve stopped to blame Him? It’s so easy for us to question His judgement and put Him on trial for the difficulties that we go through, but so much harder for us to recognize the good things we’ve been given.

One of my friends sent me a quote from one of C.S. Lewis’s books today that reads:

“Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as the road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all.”

This really hit home for me. Are we treating God simply as a means to an end that involves us having faith only to reach a certain goal that is not Him? Is God the road that we’re driving on, or the house? If He is just the road, just a means to get somewhere else, then we will get stuck every time, because the goal will never be enough. We will end up disappointed.

In this quote, C.S. Lewis is talking about H., his beloved wife that passed away. They got married on her deathbed thinking she only had a couple weeks to live, but she ended up living for three more years. Lewis is addressing his own possible reasons for turning to God – the hope that through Him and the eternal life that He offers he will meet his wife again. But he calls himself out, pointing out the fact that if we are approaching God for another reason other than the fact that He is the one who satisfies and He is the end goal Himself, then we have not truly recognized our need for Him at all.

If we are faithful in an attempt to get something else out of it, then we are completely missing the point which is that God is the ultimate end; He is the ultimate good. Without Him, life is utterly meaningless, because we will get stuck every time. If your goal is marriage and you believe that by being faithful and trusting in Him, He will answer your prayers and you’ll get married, you have missed the point. Yes, God loves answering prayers and He wants you to ask for the desires of your heart, but if you never ended up getting married would you still be faithful? If you’ve been praying to get into graduate school for years and you were sure your prayers would be answered because you’ve been so faithful, would you still trust in His plan and His goodness? If your wife died at a young age shortly after you’d gotten married, would you doubt Him? C.S. Lewis recognizes that we often forget that He is the end that we’re searching for, and so we treat Him as a road to be used to get where we really want to be going.

This has been a really helpful way for me to think about suffering. If He’s the road and not the means to an end, then nothing can disappoint you enough to make you doubt His judgement. If every other good thing is just an added bonus, how could we possibly be unfulfilled and not find peace?

This is not to say that not getting married after hoping to for so long, not getting into graduate school after working so hard, or losing a spouse or another loved one too soon are not sad things. Those are terrible things!!! And anyone that finds themselves in that situation has every right to be absolutely heartbroken. But there is a difference between being sad and being hopeless.

The kind of disappointment that involves being stopped short and never making it to the goal leads to utter hopelessness. When you’ve made something that is not God your end goal, how could you possibly recover when you’ve lost it? That makes perfect sense. If being married or getting into grad school or that person was your everything, of course you’re going to feel lost when it slips from your grasp. But the thing about making God your end goal is that despite the suffering and disappointment and loss, you still have meaning. You still have purpose. You still have a goal and a reason to get up in the morning because you have a God that loves you. You cannot possibly be hopeless because you know that Jesus himself leads to the greatest hope there is – eternal life in Him. Eternal life with no suffering, no death, no loneliness, no disappointment. Jesus died on the cross because he hates suffering as much – more – than you do. His friends abandoned him, he was mocked, he was forced to wear a crown of thorns, he hung from his hands and feet until he suffocated because the weight of his body was too much on his lungs. And then he rose again. He suffered so much in order to conquer death so that we would have the opportunity to live with him forever. If that doesn’t give you chills and provide hope for you during all of this uncertainty, I don’t know what will.

The last words that Jesus spoke on the cross were, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I used to pretend that sentence wasn’t in the Bible. I used to think, if even Jesus is questioning God, how am I supposed to manage having faith? But, again, I was missing the point. Rather than a cry of utter hopelessness because of the abandonment of his Heavenly Father, Jesus speaks these words in reference to Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

and by night but find no rest.

Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In you our ancestors trusted;

they trusted, and you delivered them.

To you they cried, and were saved;

In you they trusted and were not put to shame.

By saying these words as he hung on the cross, Jesus was not crying out in hopelessness, he was crying out in hope. Hope for those who trust in Him because they will be delivered. “In you they trusted and were not put to shame.” He wanted those who had faith to continue trusting in him, because even though all they saw in that moment was their savior hanging on a cross, the darkness would not last. Jesus knew as he hung there that he would rise again.

The darkness will not last.

Remember,

be strong & courageous.

xo. Flannery Grace