My anger towards God recently surfaced. I started writing out of this experience.

I never saw my shadow ’till I saw the light
And now I need more light to drown it out
I cannot bear that this should continue
Nor can I bear that it should stop

Massivivid, “Drop” (Song lyrics)

Shame and Perfectionism Take Hold

The demands I place on myself are too much. Perfectionism tells me that no matter what I do, it’s never good enough. As a result, shame tells me there is something fundamentally wrong with me. When I agree, I project those beliefs onto God. He is constantly judging me. So I try to perform better to combat my own shame. And I project those beliefs onto people. They are constantly judging me. People, I can get away from temporarily. Myself, I cannot. God, I cannot.

I try to improve myself to combat my own shame. However irrational it sounds, somewhere along the way I have believed the lie that I must do the impossible in order to be acceptable: be perfect.

What takes over is a generalized and pervasive kind of performance anxiety. My behavior is dictated by my own perceptions of external influences. If I don’t measure up, God will hurt me. If I don’t measure up, people will hurt me. My own experience seems to confirm these ideas. Because it is impossible to meet my own and everyone else’s wants, needs, and expectations, I find myself being hard on myself when I fail. Why? Because I wonder what is wrong with me. I am ashamed of myself, I am afraid, and I don’t know how to fix my imperfections so that I am no longer afraid.

Shadow Boxing

In my developmental years, I dealt with this by creating a persona in order to play the role I had to fulfill. This isn’t my real self. He is someone I developed in order to successfully present myself to the world and to God. Everyone reaches this stage and to some degree creates their own character to deal with the challenges of life. Similar to creating a character in a video game, we choose our looks, weapons, and skills in order to create an identity that will survive and hopefully win. We intuitively know we are imperfect and that someone outside of ourselves will probably judge us and hurt us as soon as they find out. Every character we create is vulnerable.

One approach is to make myself acceptable to everyone as far as I am able. Another approach that is gaining traction in popular culture is to put myself out there and try to make everyone accept me as I am. Neither approach deals with the fundamental problem of a broken and wounded self. This is the self we encountered early in life when we began to experience disappointment and shame.

“It (self-hatred) begins by accepting the special value of the particular self called me; then, wounded in its pride to find that such a darling object should be so disappointing, it seeks revenge, first upon that self, then on all.”

C.S. Lewis, “Two Ways with the Self” (From the C.S. Lewis compilation book, “God in the Dock”)

The broken self gets dealt with in a number of ways, most of them ineffective at best and destructive at worst. For me, I put him in the background while I developed a more presentable person who, once perfected, will become successful and thrive in all areas where I am weak and enhance my strengths. It seemed like a worthwhile project at the time. Fake it ’til I make it? Sure, but what happens to the wounded self once I make it? How do I cope with the pressures of success? How do I cope with inevitable moments of failure? What do I do with that underlying fear that someday my weakness will surface and sabotage everything I have worked for?

Christian Disillusionment

Early in my childhood I became a Christian. With all of my normal human baggage I entered into a relationship with God through faith in Christ Jesus. I am grateful for that and still believe wholeheartedly. What needs to be unpacked is the way I have tried to use God in order to work on my pet project and enhance my public image. I wanted to not only be a good Christian, but I wanted to be good at Christianity in the same way I was good at basketball when I was younger. With lots of practice and focus, I would really do this well and gain some notoriety and favor from God and people. If I put in the work, God would enhance my ego, eliminate my weaknesses and really make me glow. Great plan!

And, with a little grooming from my church tradition, hyped up Christian youth camps, and the unique influence of Christian culture in the 90’s, I chose to believe that God would come through and make me something quite special. The result would finally be a comfortable life with enough money and acclaim to help me feel good about myself. These ideas became the “carrot on a stick” that I would chase for a long time. Again, my own ego and distorted perceptions are also responsible for misinterpreting my church experience.

I understand why people say Christianity doesn’t work for them. It doesn’t “work” for me either. What I mean is, whatever assumptions and expectations I had of myself and of God when I started this have not come to fruition quite the way I wanted. I couldn’t manipulate God or work the process to my selfish advantage. My Christianity was driven by self-centered motivations. I pursued a relationship with God with my own agenda, which really limits meaningful intimacy with God. Now, the difficult part is dealing with spiritual disillusionment and disorientation.

“The wrong asceticism torments the self: the right kind kills the selfness.”

C.S. Lewis, “Two Ways with the Self” (From the C.S. Lewis compilation book, “God in the Dock”)

The process of disillusionment over the years has been terribly painful. However, the more recent experience of seeing him work in me is rather surprising. It is still painful, but in a good way. The pursuit of a right relationship with God is now moving towards realizing what he wants from me, which takes priority over what I want from him. It is a kind of death to the self-centered orientation of my life. This movement actually helps me find compassion and healing towards my emerging shadow. Like the prodigal son, the wounded, angry, and rejected self is coming home to his loving heavenly Father.

“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.”

Luke 15:20