The Straight Jacket Effect

Image: I am curled up in the fetal position. My arms are covering my head, my face is buried. I peek out. I see them coming. Two people much bigger than me. They are holding something between them. It is white. It is long. It looks like a robe. It is a straight-jacket. They are going to put me into it.

Instinctively I begin to fight. Internally, deep down inside, I know I will lose. There is no chance of it being any other way, they will restrain me. I could, I should just resign and save myself the effort. A useless fury rises against the inevitable. I know I will be flattened, I know this wrestling match is only my own. I know, I know, I know. But everything inside of me still rails against it, and I fight, hard.

I lose. I fight until I’m too tired to fight anymore, and I lose. They really are so much bigger than me. They haven’t even broken a sweat as they let me exhaust myself. They are totally unaffected by my fury and sense of injustice. My denial of reality is useless. Reality surrounds me in the form of the straightjacket. I continue to squirm and jab and twist and I hate every second of it.

Finally I’m done. I’m not even mad anymore, I’m just so tired. In the wake of my anger I’m also really sad, and the tears come. My strained body is motionless until the tears stop. I come to some peace that really isn’t peace at all but just a resignation to reality. I drift off to sleep.

This is the best way I can describe the cycle I go through on a regular basis when I am forced to face everything ugly in the world. And by everything ugly, I mean suffering, including but not limited to children who are sick and dying, senseless violence and disregard for human life, lives torn apart by addiction and alcoholism, abortion clinics, poverty, abuse, AIDS, infidelity, lying, cheating, loneliness in any form, corrupt religious leaders and false teachers, attacks on the Savior and people rejecting God and the list goes on ad infinitum.

It takes almost no effort to come across these things which make me believe that life is something like trying desperately to squeeze my feet into shoes that are too small. Like trying to jam the wrong key into the keyhole to start a car whose breaks go out as soon as you get going. Like the windows and doors have traded places and there is no roof anyways so it just rains on us all day every day and what is the point?

I see these things coming. They are attacks on all things good. If I even catch a glimpse or smell a whiff in the air, I immediately begin to fight that they are real. My entire being rails against so much twisted ugliness. Something deep inside of me screams “ABSOLUTELY NOT! NO-NO-NO! UNACCEPTABLE! NOT EVEN POSSIBLE! NOT TRUE! NOT REAL! NO-NO-NO!”.

But these things, they are so big. Denial is not the solution. They win a fast battle against denial. Acceptance? I absolutely cannot accept that catchy phrase I hear people saying which goes something like “everything happens for a reason, God is in control and everything is how it’s supposed to be”. Really? This is all a product of sin. And sin is not how it was supposed to be.

So I get angry. Then I get sad. Then I get tired and resign to the reality that this is life as we know it. This crushes me entirely. This is the fallen human race, this is where we live, this is what goes on, this is what will continue going on until the end.

But wait! I am reminded….before falling into the abyss of hopelessness, all is not lost!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.” (Proverbs 3:5-8)

One thing I love about my Christian faith, is that because of who God is and what He has done, I get to live in reality. God has a standard, we fall short of it. God loves fallen humanity in all its brokenness, and Jesus came to pay for it. The high cost of sin was not lowered to pennies because of our failure. Instead, the cost was upheld, and it was paid for by Jesus’ death on the cross.

So I’m free. All that ugly stuff? Yes, it really is that ugly, it really does push that hard against what God intended for us, it really does sting that bad. I don’t have to pretend, and I don’t have to try and do mental gymnastics to find a nonexistent comfort and justification for things which make me (and rightly should make me) sad, angry, disgusted, and uncomfortable.

I will still wrestle with the broken things of the world, I think I am supposed to. Based on my understanding of God’s love for us, I would say it’s safe to assume that his reactions are similar. The Bible is clear that He hates sin, so how much more must he hate the paths of destruction and pain it weaves in our lives? “Shun evil.” Being realistic about this also frees me to see the enormous contrast of all my blessings, and to cherish them all the more.

Oh yeah, and my attempts at “understanding” all this brokenness, my denial, my wrestling? It mostly just stems from my inability to look to Him instead of looking to Me.

Jesus, change my perspective. Help me keep my eyes on you instead of on everything that goes on around me. Help me look to you for peace instead of depending on myself or my own understanding. I pray that you keep my paths straight in this crooked world.