Glimmer

I just started the book “Crazy For God” by Frank Schaeffer. I don’t know if anyone out there has some opinion of it or not. I chose it because of the blurb on the front after it was recommended on a blog that I follow. That blurb is an indicator that maybe Mr. Schaeffer understands some of the same things I am currently going through. That blurb is this: “How I grew up as one of the elect, helped found the religious right, and lived to take all (or almost all) of it back.” Hmmm. Sounds like I might identify in some ways with him.

I am 50 pages into it and am not let down. Even little phrases and the way he says certain things speak to me. I understand what is behind what he is saying. I have lived much of what he is talking about to this point. Not the locations and things that he did. In fact, I think we are interested in way different things. Our likes are quite a distance apart. But the thinking behind the life is that with which I can identify.

There is a quote in the introduction that clarifies nearly exactly how I feel about my recent search for how God wants me and him to relate to each other. On page 5, “My life has been one of all-consuming faith – not my faith, but the faith of others that I seem to have caught like a disease and been almost obliterated by. What does God want? I am still trying to find out…Every action, every thought, every moment I stumble into is judged by an inner voice. Everything seems to have a moral component. Eating…sex…what I write, don’t write, who I talk to, don’t talk to, and how I raised my children, their characters, accomplishments, failures, whether they ‘love the Lord’ or not…”

Man have I felt that and still do. What it feels like to scrutinize nearly everything you do or say or think for purity or rightness. And it feels like no way to live. It feels like a way to die. I am eager to find out where Mr. Schaeffer ended up on his own personal search. Maybe it hasn’t ended. But I see a glimmer of hope for me in his words thus far.