"A Fool's Hope"

"A Fool's Hope: Or, How I Chose One Family Over Another"

By Asia Wall

Last night I had a dream that my husband had a son from a previous relationship. He was living with this other family so that he could spend more time with his son, which was incredibly painful for me. Later in the dream, he finally decided to come back and live with us, and I was so happy, it felt so good that he had chosen us over them.

Upon waking, I thought about how love only feels real and meaningful if it involves choice. This is one reason why we don't see arranged marriages as "real love," even though that can develop later, it's not seen as the ideal. However, to choose someone or something, you have to have other real, valid options. Otherwise, you're just choosing by default. It doesn't feel as good to be chosen if there are no other viable candidates. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen" doesn't mean much if you're the ONLY beautiful woman he's ever seen!

I believe that this has several implications in regard to our relationship with God. To put it simply, there are two kingdoms, or families: The Family of God, and The Human Family, or "The World." If you are born into a Christian family, you are sanctified by your believing parents (1 Cor. 7:14), and therefore born into God's family. Otherwise, you are born into the human family, in which case your father is not God, but the devil (John 8:42-47). These two families are incredibly different, but they both offer real and perceived benefits and disadvantages. Let's first consider some of the benefits of each:

 Family of God:

-Acceptance by God

-Fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Self-Control

-Get to communicate with God, hear from Him, feel His presence

-Church Community

-Forgiveness of sin

-Deliverance from addiction, other problems

-Possibility of walking in the gifts, healing, prophecy, etc.

-The promise of eternal life in heaven with God

 The Human Family:

-Acceptance from non-Christian friends, family, the majority

-Get to maintain intellectual pride

-The feeling of power and control over your own life

-Autonomy; get to pursue what you want to pursue

-Possible to obtain worldly riches, success, even fame

-Get to indulge in food, sex, alcohol, things that gratify your flesh at the moment

-Experience euphoria and extreme highs of emotion

-No accountability/license to do what you want to do

Now, this is by no means an exhaustive list, just some of the perceived benefits that I saw when looking at both groups throughout my life. When I was a teen, I was an active participant in the homosexual community, which is a small but very vocal tribe within the human family. I loved going to Oaklawn in Dallas to hang out with homosexuals and transvestites because I enjoyed the sense of camaraderie and connectedness I felt there. Growing up in a broken home, as a child of multiple divorces, I was always looking for a place to fit in, for a home. My friends became a makeshift family, and I was very devoted to them. Likewise, when I went to Oaklawn I experienced immediate acceptance. No one judged me, they just loved me because I was there. I made a shirt that said "We Are Family" on the front, and when I wore it strangers would stop me on the street and hug me. It did feel like one, big, happy family, where we accepted each other unconditionally, regardless of race/gender/etc.

However, deep down something felt wrong. No matter how much acceptance or affirmation I received, it wasn't enough to fill the deep void inside my soul. It also didn't take away the nagging feeling of guilt and shame that I kept buried inside, that there was something wrong with me, that this wasn't how things were supposed to be. I was familiar with the church, I had experienced different forms of it throughout my life, but I wasn't sure what to make of it. It didn't seem as loving or accepting as the gay community to me, there were too many rules. I didn't want some book or some man telling me how to live my life. Plus, most of the people I admired were not Christians, and they seemed happy and successful. It seemed like Christians were happy, but I wasn't sure if it was real or just for show, especially since some of them were mean to me because of my lifestyle and how I dressed. It seemed like they were choosing to forgo fun and success and acceptance in this life for the promise of some fictional heaven that they didn't know anything about, which was just crazy to me. Which brings me to the real and perceived disadvantages of being in either family:

Family of God:

-Christians are judgmental, harsh, hypocritical, pious

-Can't do "fun" things

-Christians are weak; need the crutch of Christ to deal with life

-Mocked/excluded/persecuted

-Pretty much the most hated people on the planet

-Forgo pleasure now for the promise of heaven later (delayed gratification)

-Too many rules

-Have to obey the Bible, the Church, can't do what you want to do

-Less creative/Less good art, music, and movies

-Church stuff is boring

-You'll probably have to go to Africa or somewhere unpleasant

The Human Family:

-Feeling of guilt and shame over sins

-Hopelessness/Despair/Suicide

-Addictive and compulsive behaviors

-Intense Loneliness

-Emptiness of wealth

-Even famous people kill themselves and O.D. a lot

-STD's, abortions, other consequences

-Hell is scary

-No sense of guidance or direction in life

-Anxiety/worry/lack of peace/nightmares

-Dog eat dog mentality of the world

-The idea of nothingness, the void

The truth is, there are real and perceived advantages and disadvantages to being a part of either family. I spent years weighing it out, not looking at literal lists but allowing these things to battle in my mind every time someone confronted me with the Gospel, which happened many times. Choosing one family over another is not easy. In some places, you can lose not only your family, friends or reputation for converting to Christianity but even your very life, the stakes are incredibly high. Being a Christian does not necessarily mean that you will have better friends or a better community (at least not all the time), or that you will always be healthy or have money or worldly success. In fact, you are probably far less likely to, as even Jesus had "no place to lay his head." There are other religions where people give up worldly possessions to achieve peace or enlightenment or go to extreme lengths to secure their spot in paradise. So what makes Christianity different, and why would anyone choose it?

For me, the answer was love. This may sound simplistic, but the idea that there is a Father in heaven who loves me so much He sent His son to die for me was enough to spark my interest. And once I finally turned my attention to Him, crazy things started to happen. My addiction to smoking went away. I was able to forgive my earthly parents and make peace with them. I had supernatural experiences and saw amazing things. I began to experience real peace and joy, and less anxiety and panic attacks.

It wasn't all easy, all of my problems did not immediately disappear and there are a lot of things I still don't understand, but after a lot of wrestling I chose to join the family of God, and every day I choose to stay there because even when it's hard, it's worth it. I've always had an affinity for the underdog, and Jesus speaks to this in his utmost concern for and identification with the poor, broken and needy. The world's fascination with power and wealth just never appealed to me. I knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with me and with the world, and while other religions seemed to advocate personal disconnection from the world, or domination and destruction of it, Jesus offered the only real hope of redemption. He also offered me freedom, the freedom to own things without them owning me, the freedom to love others deeply even when they hurt me, the freedom to enjoy all things except those which would lead me back into bondage. Above all, He offered me the unconditional love and acceptance that I had been searching for, love without limits. In my darkest moments, I turned to Him, and there were times that I literally felt a physical presence in the room with me, like God was hugging me while I cried. When other religions failed me, when all my friends abandoned me, I found immeasurable comfort in knowing that I am not alone, in being able to turn to a Dad who actually loves, and likes me.

What started as a seemingly foolish hope has evolved into a very real and tangible relationship, one that I see the benefits of every day. If you are curious, just try talking to Him, trying spending time reading His word and asking Him to speak to you, and He will. Pray for specific things, ask Him questions, and trust that He will show you the answers. Keep listening, keep searching, and you will find the truth. He is worth more than anything that the world has to offer.