Absent God, What of Angst?

During the timeframe of angst is God absent? Even if we say no,  we often wonder sometimes where and when God gets involved. We pray for God to help, but where is God manifested? At what point does God step in?

Os Guinness says that perfect oneness with God is the point of prayer, and that all else is minor. I’ll get to Os in a bit.

The experiences of angst vary. It may take place with intermittent blows, rattling either the body or the spirit. Angst is most often like that. We think back to the time when we spun out after hitting the brakes on ice. Our car smacked into something undesirable. This would not be a regular thing. For some, though, angst comes with exhausting regularity, a frightening parade of constant pain-associated attacks. 

Those who don’t get these unwelcome, rare or regular, visits of angst are either in a coma or exceptionally protected. While special forces angels can be terrific protectors, angst probably finds a crack in the armor every now and again. 

These blows and attacks I mention aren't of the imaginary sort. I’m not talking about confusion or misunderstanding, or the minor angst of getting lost periodically or losing our keys. I’m talking about angst fostered by very real, creeping pangs of doom which are eventually substantiated. I’m sure you can recount rather long moments (maybe even decades) where the mounting evidence confirmed that all was not well. Yeah, the more serious stuff. 

Long bouts of television, driving around, socializing, shopping, or other mind-numbing antics may help for a while to disassociate from the angst. We might go to other extremes, like the use of pharmaceuticals, hallucinogens, barbiturates, alcohol, nicotine, sugary treats, salty munchies, and various methods of outlandish rage. Let’s set those aside. 

I’d like to propose a series of steps for those of us who are desperate to attend to ranges of both incremental and incessant volleys of angst. This series of steps I point out, and the divine assistance we engage, will help those of us, just short of full blown therapy, to deal with God’s presence. I suggest using a more solution-centered approach than, say, fainting. That sounds a bit antiseptic, but I’ll attempt to make it interesting in the midst of the logic.

The premise to this solution is that all along the process of a blooming angst a question keeps coming up. At which point in our worry and fright is God getting involved?

The typical person knows angst fairly well. It usually begins with a hot flash of “concern,” triggered by one of our five senses. Then, a common series of escalated things take place. Due to space, and anti-antiseptics, I will analogue the process by parabalizing. No, that’s not a word, but I bet you will eventually know what I mean.

Imminent angst begins like a feather floating in the air inside our house. After a few seconds of admiring the beauty of the lilting feather, our wonder turns into “worry.” A feather? That means a pillow is either leaking nearby, or worse, several feather pillows have exploded from a far distance. In any case, a lone feather spied floating around our living room has obviously traveled to us from some likely semi-violent diaspora. Or, not. It’s just a lone feather. We can’t be sure until we “investigate.” 

The feather points out the beginning of angst in three easy steps. Concern, worry, and investigation.

The feather analogy also exemplifies the common innocent beginnings of all angst. Our past experiences of angst should steel us, though, right? We are probably prepared to consider that a floating feather portends the potential for a mess somewhere, but not necessarily tragedy. We still have to find out, though. Ignoring the feather will surely mean more feathers later. 

A request for assistance, in any case, may have already taken place. Some of us might ask anywhere along this part of the process, “What is God up to?” We imagine that God invited the feather.

Concern turned into worry is subsequently followed by an appropriate set of questions about the feather. We may not have a feather pillow at all. In truth, we may simply be dealing with a bird frightened by the confines of our house. Angst builds, however, if in fact we remember that we own a feather bed, down the hall, in a spare room that we haven’t bothered to peek in on for a week, or a month. Our investigation must continue.

Upon review, we may find that nothing is wrong. The angst is abated. A true angst event, however, will not end with such news. The further progress of angst will mean, at the least, more feathers.

To further a fearful feathering fiasco, and to parabalize the worst, let us assume we will next be faced with the ominous step of “clarity.” 

Clarity displays to us the truth, either with the surety of angst, or its elimination. Clarity takes threat, worry, paranoia, and possibility and sharpens the focus. We’re going to forego elimination for our purposes. “Yup, we’re in deep doo doo.” This is often where we wonder if God is busy somewhere else. We find ourselves wandering into enemy territory, or trapped behind enemy lines. We believe we are alone.

For instance, in our analogy, let’s say we notice upon entering the spare bedroom that the featherbed is indeed destroyed. How? We clearly see that claws have ripped open the feather bed, not just one corner, but the entire bottom half of the mattress. 

What happened? We then see a window (or, maybe a sliding door is present in your back room) open to the elements, due to a broken section of glass. Next, we wonder who did this? 

There. A fox is staring at us from outside the broken glass. What was he doing? We immediately hear squeals, and gingerly lifting the featherbed we see four feral fox kitts. (The plot thickens.)

The angst now takes on the palpable pain of accelerated angst. 

In the mouth of the parent fox is a rare, extremely expensive book that we were saving for retirement. Hmmm. That’s bad, but eventually, just disappointing. Let’s ratchet that up. Perhaps, the fox holds a recognizable blue folder which contained hundreds of thousands of formerly hidden bank notes, which we see are now chewed into bits, strewn among the feathers. I don’t know. That’s pretty darn bad, too, but not likely life threatening. 

So, egad, let’s say that the fox holds our last container of heart medicine, which we forgot to take, and we now only have minutes to live!

Yes, that’s a fairly obscure and odd analogy, but the point is that the process of angst travels methodically from concern about potential calamity, onto subsequent questions and investigation, and then we get clarity. Clarity of a very real angst leads us to many different levels of panic. We realize that a benign floating feather has turned into a full blown potentially life-ending crisis. 

This final panic stage of angst triggers our response to the calamity. Some folks scream. Some folks faint. Some folks break down. Etc. Reportedly, and eventually, most of us invoke the Triune call to arms. We call upon the Father, Son and/or Holy Spirit to intervene.

This probably sounds eerily familiar. Or, maybe somewhat familiar. The specificity of angst varies for each of us, but it is almost always based upon a set of escalating consequences. We all secretly wish that the worst things that happen to us do so in an instant and then are over with. Most worst things, though, follow in agonizing slow motion, an impending process. I say "impending" as a period of time leading up to full blown clarity. We have lots of short-term angst; those associated with an "uh oh" (accidental self-inflicted error) or a "dang" (unexpected calamity). Those are awful, but not truly angst ridden.

Due to an innumerable set of both short and long-term interruptions to peace and calm in our world, we are all bound to suffer both physical and emotional crunches, constrictions, catapults, careens, coughs, churls, churns, and chills. We wonder, though. How does God deal with these things? 

The expectations at issue are not always life-threatening. We could expect just about anything, but we almost always find ourselves running into trouble and hoping, or even expecting, that God can help.

For instance, we have difficulty breathing, safely commandeering a nail gun, negotiating an icy sidewalk, undergoing cancer treatments, pouring hot oil, stepping into a canoe, recognizing names, or paying bills. Our call upon God at these times is a prayer in crisis. A crisis prayer is an anxious pleading with God to do one of the following:

• fix _____
• provide N amounts of ______
• stop A from doing X
• change history

That brings me to Os Guinness. I met Os briefly in 1971 when he was writing one of his first books, The Dust of Death. He was 30 at the time, leading retreats. I was attending one. I didn’t know then that he was the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness the Dublin brewer, nor that he would someday be a famous Christian author. He was just a very nice, intelligent, spiritual guy. 

But, I came upon his name today after praying for help in dealing with an angst ridden series of events that I have been powering through. I’ve been getting God’s help along the way, but I was searching for more clarity in understanding how God walks with me. I hadn’t thought of Os more than three or four times over the last 45 years.

I was reading one of John Eldridge’s daily book excerpts, and something popped out at me. I read a paragraph out loud to Joanne which ended with the mantra, “Jesus, come into (our angst) and heal.”

Eldridge, then, goes on to explain:

“Oswald Chambers, a man who wrote profoundly and elegantly on prayer, made a radical statement when he said, ‘The idea of prayer is not in order to get answers from God.’ Good heavens — it’s not? What then is the purpose? ‘Prayer is perfect and complete oneness with God.’ A mighty truth is being uncovered here.”

Eldridge and Chambers say that being one with God is the goal of our existence. It goes beyond a belief system, beyond worship, and even beyond trust. Being one means to allow Jesus to draw us into him. At all times. Everywhere. Let him be there with us in the tiniest of details, and when the calamity strikes the relationship is already in play. Prayer is truly invoking an existing relationship, not getting a fix. 

In our angst, though, we more commonly invoke our pleas to God — probably too late -- rather than resource our relationship. We are usually at odds with God most of the time, doing our own thing. We truly believe he is there only when we are frightened, when we need his awesome power. When we take God with us always, though, then he is already there in our angst. All of it. He is there in our concerns, our investigations, and in the clarity of calamity. Of course he is. God is with us. 

So, when we see the feather, we stand there with God, in wonder, and follow the trail, knowing he is with us the whole way. He shares in our surprise at the featherbed out of deference (God already knows about the featherbed, right?), but he holds our hand with full understanding of what’s going on. He touches our shoulder to assure us. He whispers in our ear, a familiar refrain we have come to know at other times. God is also as completely engaged with the fox and its kitts as he is with us. God isn’t just ours. God is with everyone, even the fox who has built a den in our featherbed and somehow found our heart pills. 

Our angst will play out as it will, certainly, but the entire Trinity is with us. Jesus walks with us. The Spirit whispers to us. The Father willingly orchestrates what takes place. We don’t yell out in order to get God to run to us. God is already there.

That was the help that I was searching for. God took me from brother John Eldridge to brother Os and to my wife. God took me from decades ago to today; and then helped me write it out. All concern, worry, investigation and clarity brings us closer to God.

That’s the oneness I want, the union I need to practice.