Thank you to those of you who’ve taken the time to respond to the previous two topics in this series. Your experiences with hearing God’s voice and with the church have beautifully illustrated for me the uniqueness of each individual’s journey with God. Your insights also show how universal many aspects of faith can be. I invite continued discussion on these topics!
My final stuck spot to elaborate on in this series is my stuckness in sharing the gospel. Throughout my denomination-hopping youth and young adulthood, I heard different definitions of “the gospel” (literally good news).
First, I perceived my childhood church’s definition through the black-and-white lenses of youth: God’s grace and forgiveness given through Jesus when people submit in obedience by being baptized and continued obedience to that church’s interpretation of the Bible. To share the gospel with others meant bringing them to our church and leading them to get baptized. All of this, of course, was to be “saved,” to come to know Jesus, with the ultimate result of escaping God’s condemnation of eternal torment in hell and instead living eternally in heaven.
When I got baptized as a teenager, it was that fear of hell that won me over. I also felt some desire to be in the light with God, to make good choices, and to feel clean of deceit and darkness. But if I’m honest, it was fear, more than anything, that motivated me to receive and obey the gospel. I don’t love telling my personal come-to-Jesus story because it’s so interlaced with fear. That still doesn’t feel very good news to me.
So, when I shared the gospel as a teen and college student, it was this: You should be baptized and believe in God and Jesus so you don’t go to hell. I had true, palpable fear for my non-Christian friends. As the last three years of high school progressed, and college began, I became increasingly staunch in my beliefs and bolder in telling my friends about my concern for their souls. The newfangled internet allowed me to mass email friends who didn’t attend my church (though some did go to other not-so-saved churches) about how and why to be saved. Some friends tolerated the changed, judgmental Heidi, probably understanding that I was newly religious and not trying to offend them. Others distanced themselves from me, and in retrospect, I can’t really blame them. How good was the news I was sharing when it came out of such a place of fear?
As I matured and (hopefully) developed more balanced social skills, I also opened my mind to accept a variety of churches and perceptions of God, Scripture, and sharing the gospel. The churches of my twenties celebrated a relationship with God as something just as intimate as a relationship with a friend. Sharing the gospel meant introducing others to this friend. I became on fire for Jesus, with fear as a minor background noise for the first time in my life. I wanted now to share the gospel more out of excitement and love than fear and duty. I told gas station attendants and other strangers that God loved them. I prayed for people on the street. I invited coworkers to Bible studies. I pushed myself through nervous, awkward moments and spoke Jesus’ name even when I heard crickets chirping at the conclusion of my one-sided monologue.
Even though my understanding of the traditional doctrine of hell changed in my thirties (watch the slightly cheesy move on Amazon Prime, Hell & Mr. Fudge, for a synopsis), the urgency of sharing the gospel didn’t dissipate. But my social circle changed, and I felt guilty that I mostly knew Christians at this point: from teaching at a Christian school to hanging out with other Christian stay-at-home moms, there just wasn’t much opportunity to mingle with the unsaved. So, with the few I did know- my neighbors, strangers- I always had an ulterior motive. I waited for moments to Jesus-juke conversations. I talked a non-Christian friend into doing a Bible study with me and felt this was the entire point of our friendship. When I felt too awkward to talk about Jesus out loud, I snuck him into Christmas cards and thank-you notes. But the constant anxiety of ulterior motives in relationships actually weighed on me as time went on. Would I never be allowed to love a person as a person? Did sharing the gospel mean I could never relax and just listen to another human’s story without judgment?
Then, spiritual trauma entered my own story. I had been sharing Jesus the best I knew how during my two-month stay in the hospital in 2017. Elliot’s miraculous survival through my body’s attempts to miscarry him for my entire pregnancy, then his miraculous growth in my womb for ten weeks after my water broke, and his survival through my emergency c-section, his stability in the NICU- everything was a neon sign flashing for Jesus, and I told everyone around me so.
Then, in a moment, a flash, he was gone, and everything I believed and perceived about my faith in God was shattered.
In my memoir, I chronicle that journey and the incredible constancy of God’s presence. Jesus has been remarkably faithful in building me a new mosaic of himself in the six and a half years since that horrific moment. It still makes me cry, though, friends. I am still so, so sad that my son is not here.
And I am truly grateful that Jesus is here.
But what it means to be “saved,” to accept Christ, whether through baptism, a phrase, a prayer, or a cognitive shift, is now mystifying to me. Because, you see, everything about my religious infrastructure came crashing down: what God plans/wills, how he works, what miracles he performs, what church means, what the Bible means, and how we hear and follow his voice, what is the nature of eternity, and more. I am in stuck spots in these areas. And therefore, sharing the good news about these areas is impossible because I don’t know what I think about many of them.
As in the introduction to this series, as well as in the first in the series about hearing God’s voice and the second about the church, all I can articulate is what it feels like to be stuck, to find no clarity in an area that once seemed so clear. I once flippantly claimed to know what the gospel is and how and why we share it. I still believe Jesus is the source and the destination of all we should be doing and how we do it. But to say, “God could not be in your presence because of your sin. Therefore, Jesus died to assuage God’s wrath against you. You need to believe in Jesus so you don’t fall under that wrath,” makes little sense to me now.
I don’t claim to know a lot about the various theories of atonement. But I know a little, and I’m vaguely annoyed that mainstream evangelical Christianity never informed me there were competing views and theories But, like so many doctrines, the mainstream presented such theology as irrefutable fact. I hope we grow to have less lecture and more discourse in this beautiful family of ours, church.
I’ve learned in recent years that prior to about 1080 AD, the prevailing view of why Christ died is now termed the Ransom Theory. After the publication of a work by Anselm of Canterbury, the most predominant view grew into the Satisfaction View, which then morphed during the Reformation into the Penal Substitutionary Theory. This is still the predominant view. You can look up the definitions and characteristics of all these views, which are just a few of the many that have been held and are held. The point I’m trying to make is that followers of Jesus, though uniformly accepting and believing in Jesus’ life, sacrifice, and resurrection, have wrestled and differed for two millennia as to what that actually means.
What the Bible calls sin, a.k.a. “missing the mark,” is, in my view, any and all divergence from who we really are in the love of God. Every unkindness, every moral failing, every vice-it all stems from a distancing, almost a stupified sleepwalking, away from the essence of who we were created to be. I’m not advocating relinquishing an appreciation for the way in which the gospel traditionally is presented: We’ve wandered from God. We need to return to God. Immanuel, God with us, took our failings with him to the cross. We accept that sacrifice in our place and thus resolve to return to the right relationship with God. In essence, this is how the gospel is presented, and I would not necessarily argue with it.
But I suppose where I get stuck is that I almost don’t have words for what more there is to Christ.
Yes, I say more. So much more. To make a disappointed God whose wrath and holiness demanded a sacrifice to satisfy that wrath the be-all and end-all of Jesus paints God so punitively. To “share the gospel” by saying, “You accept Christ/say a prayer/be baptized because YOU are not enough” is like telling my children that unless they shape up, I will not love them.
Something is lacking for me in the traditional view of sharing the gospel. At the risk of being labeled a universalist, I must come back to how much Christ loved me when I was at my worst. Many days, I still struggle with the worst version of myself. Just this morning, I reacted to typical childish behaviors from my kids with an inner rage I would probably judge if I saw it in someone else. I feel guilty and inadequate, and I have a lot of pride to swallow to ask for their forgiveness.
And he is with me, he is with me, he is with me. Immanuel. God with us.
I have no problem telling people that Jesus incredibly and incomprehensibly loves them. Even that he died for their wandering from God and to bring them back to their Creator. I think the world needs him badly. But I don’t think the traditional fear/guilt-based tactic is working.
When fear won me over as a teen, it morphed into a better way of knowing Jesus. I think that was his mercy. And maybe he knew that only fear would motivate me. I don’t know.
I’ve been so hurt, so lost, so afraid in the past several years. I’ve been completely spiritually bankrupt. Now that I know he was with me, is with me, and will be with me unconditionally, how can I tell people a list of conditions?
I am not awkwardly trying to squeeze Jesus into conversations or thank-you notes anymore. In a way, maybe I’m sharing the gospel more genuinely than I ever did because it’s simply coming from my own story. It’s coming from my bruised and bloody heart that Jesus picked up tenderly and daily bears with me. I think of him carrying my burdens as he walked to the cross, hung on it, and now continually intercedes for me, for you. The image of Jesus on the cross has such a different meaning for me now. It is more than a transaction with God to pay for my sins.
I see him carrying that cross in my mind’s eye, and I also see him carrying me as I buried my infant son and carrying a million mothers who’ve buried their own children. I see him beautiful in brokenness, so I accept he makes me beautiful in brokenness. I see the incomprehensible ardor of a God who would be one of us to be with us, and I know I do not repulse him. I imagine his brilliance outshining the sunrise as he rose, and I’m reminded that he will make things right in the end. He reminds me that it’s right to smile at the stars, to wonder at snowflakes, to stare at the freckles on my daughter’s nose. Even in the bleakest suffering, his joy remains. Even in the joyous moments, he never dismisses the pain we carry. At the cross, he draws you and me nearer, nearer, nearer.
So when I say I don’t know how to share the gospel, I don’t know how to explain what to do with the knowledge of the love of God in Christ. I don’t think people can live the way they want without regard to consequences or even, in some sense, God’s judgment. But what I wrote above is mysterious and emotional to me. The words I would have once used to articulate “the gospel” are stripped from me.
So, hopefully, I’ll be a friend to others and share how Christ has carried me. I can talk about who Jesus is, invite the people in my circle to know him, and then trust that he doesn’t let them go if they don’t hear or receive my words. I’m not worried about them. He loves them more than I do.
I do pray for and hope that this world will know Christ and the power of his incarnation. There’s so much needless suffering, pain, and sadness. There’s enough that goes wrong in life through illness, disaster, and accidents. Why do we humans seem to add to it with our own hatred, envy, and selfishness?
That’s why I do want Jesus to be known in this world. Of course, I want everyone to live with him forever in eternity. But I want people to be released from the worst versions of themselves now. Sin is such a sticky trap. It disfigures the children of God.
So, while I’m stuck in the religious sense of sharing the gospel, I suppose my own sharing of good news is very simple.
God really does love you. Christ on the cross really happened out of love, mercy, compassion for, and solidarity with you. He weeps with you in life’s sorrows. He is the source and destination of true joy. Let his love permeate you. Then, you’ll be free to pass the love he showed you to others. There is no other true meaning to life.
In the form below, I would love to hear about your experiences. A message you leave in this form is private and will only be seen by me; it is not public or visible anywhere else. Please note that I may use your words in other articles and/or books, with a pseudonym. By commenting, you are granting permission for such usage. I may also contact you to ask follow-up questions.
Questions: If you claim faith in Jesus, how and when and why do you share the gospel? What is the gospel to you? Has the definition of the gospel changed for you? How has your understanding of Jesus’ purpose been altered by trauma?
Also, feel free to share anything about your journey with Jesus, especially as it’s been affected by spiritual wrestling or trauma.
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