Finding My Gethsemane

Running, Bitterness, and My Problem with Grace

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

~ Matthew 26:41 ~

I think I’m running. From what, I’m not sure. To where, I don’t know. But I sense it. The pace, the pulse, the movement in my soul—the running.

I don’t know the goal. It seems evasive. Or maybe just shy. I feel like I approach and it recoils, cowers from my shadow. Fearing detection, the goal of my running trembles. So I run harder, faster, searching for something that doesn’t want to be found.

We all do this. To some extent. In a variety of seasons. But I sense it strongly in me right now: I’m running. In conversation, in classrooms, over coffee, even sitting in this café in downtown Boston.

I’m seated in the center of the room at a multi-colored wooden table about 15 feet in length. I’m facing screened menus and fresh pastries, with populated booths just behind. Chatter and clanging dishes fill the ether. The young man to my right works intently on a project, flashing between his word doc and a zoom screen populated by half-a-dozen others. The man to my left takes up four seats with his notebook and MacBook spread strategically as he intently strokes his stubbled chin with eyes heavenward searching the ceiling for whatever solution eludes him. The young woman across from me talks with increasing animation, louder and more expressive with every passing phrase to her friend who, at the moment, is blocked from my view by an oddly placed column that is, I’m sure, architecturally essential even if aesthetically appalling.

And amidst this motion and commotion, I’m running. Sitting in plain sight, laptop open, fingers typing, with my tea growing as tepid as my soul.

I came here to run. Intentionally to get away. To write and to walk the cold streets of Boston in search of something.

Myself? Maybe. Although that seems more mystical and romantic than I know to be true.

Meaning? Probably. But that seems more vague and vacuous than I know to be real.

God? Well, shoot. That may be closer to true, because as I wrote those sacred three letters something in me shivered. Deep in my belly. In the core of my imago dei. A tremor deeply submerged by busy-ness, self-critique, and running.

Is it you God? Am I running from you?

I wish it was to you, but sometimes I find the only way I can survive is by running from you. From God. Which sounds odd, I know, especially when I preach and teach the tenderness of God in each sermon and lesson I give.

But the truth is (for those with deep wounds): divine tenderness sears. Slashes with precision and pain. Pain so potent, in fact, that I cling to shadows. To evasive motion. To actions and reactions more fit for running even if I’m here sitting.

Now, this isn’t new for me or my relationship with God. Quite often, when I return from a spiritual retreat or a time of extended prayer, I’m exhausted and even a bit irritable.

My wife finds this comical. She will emerge from a meeting with her spiritual director with a celestial smile and a blissful sigh announcing, even without words, a peace pervading her soul like the first sip of hot coffee on a cold winter morning. I, on the other hand, will emerge from a session with my spiritual director with a bleak gait and a nerve-regulating grunt announcing, even without words, an exhaustion shadowing my entire being like the marathon runner whose body forgets how to function just before the finish line. She smiles and shakes her head already knowing her question’s answer, “So, how was it?”

Now it’s not the spiritual director’s fault. I respond the same way after counseling sessions, centering prayer, and even sermons I preach. It’s me. For whatever reason, key characteristics of my relationship with God are struggle, strain, toil, turmoil, exhaustion, and running.

Yes, my wife wrestles with God too, but more like Jesus in Gethsemane, where he sweats blood but emerges with resolute faith, empowered for whatever may come. My wrestling, though, is more like Jacob on the banks of the river Jabbok, a death match with God that ends with a new name and a dislocated hip.

Maybe that’s why I’m running. I know, deep inside, if I slow down for too long, I’ll encounter the Lord. And it will cost me. Maybe too much. Possibly more than I’m willing to offer. Definitely more than I’m willing to relinquish. And I know it. I know what he demands.

“No!” I shout. “You can’t have it!”

Yet he stares at me intently, eyes as deep as oceans, not saying a word but shouting all the same.

We all have treasures we hide from God. Dreams we won’t relinquish; memories we don’t want to remember; sins we pretend don’t matter; addictions we aren’t willing to admit. Each treasure marked “not for sale,” hidden from God even as he snoops in the closet of our heart.

My treasure is bitterness.

My goodness…that line was hard to write. As I did, I sensed that shiver again. The quake beneath the surface that surfaces only when I know something essential is rising and I must persist. I must continue.

Bitterness is my pearl of great price buried deep in the soil of my soul. It cost me a lot to acquire it, and I have no intention of unearthing it, much less selling it. So, I run.

Why? Because bitterness reminds me that my pain is justified. That my wounds are real. That how I was treated was wrong, and the people that did it even more so.

My bitterness testifies that what was done has still not been made right. And I think that’s what I fear most about banishing my bitterness: that now the wrong will never be made right. The evil and the evil-doer will proceed unscathed, swaddled in deception and dominance.

Yet bitterness whispers lyrics of accountability, of toppling tyrants, of soul-seducing sympathy that rehearses each word and each wrong endured in a symphony of pain and promise—pledges to make things right not paved by forgiveness but with vows of vengeance. And the more demeaning the wound, the more dehumanizing the wrong, the deeper the seeds of bitterness pierce the soul of our souls, spreading roots and tendrils deep into our imagination where scenarios are searched for what could have been and what I hope will be. Bitterness promises a resolution to my unresolved pain, and promises to protect me until that day comes.

Yes, I know the promises of grace, the story of Christ’s glory, but sometimes, in moments of deep pain, grace grates against my soul. Yes, I want it. Indeed, I preach it. And for most, I give it freely. But there are layers of betrayal where bitterness seems far more soothing than mercy. Where bitterness sings a song far more enticing than the overtures of forgiveness and reconciliation.

I guess, in some ways, then, my bitterness is a banner announcing: I don’t trust God. I don’t trust him to fight for me. To defend me. To wound my wounder. To set the wrongs right.

And so, I run. In my bitterness. Away from grace. Discipled by deception, coddled by criticism, and drowning without hope of healing.

Goodness, Lord: the cost of bitterness is deceptive. It takes far more than it promises; it burdens far more than it blesses. Bitterness distorts reality even as it preaches a new one. It twists, ever so slightly, the avenues and enclaves that populate heart and mind supposedly surrendered to You alone, producing thorns that slice at a touch and nails that pierce at a glance, yet each cut reminding me I’m alive, that I still feel, for the numbness of bitterness causes me to question how alive I truly am.

I’m running, God, because I know that if I encounter you, it will cost me my bitterness. And at this point, I don’t know who I am without it. Not after this long. Not after pain this deep.

Then again, I’m tired. Exhausted, really. Strained by grace ever pursuing my wayward heart. Lungs burning with mercy as I gasp for air at the end of this years-long run in bitterness.

I’m done, God. Done running. Done straining. I’m at the end not of a race, but the end of me. I have nothing left. All I have, all I am is laid bare.

I’m ready, God. To leave the banks of the Jabbok and to enter my own Gethsemane. I can’t promise I won’t struggle and strain, sweat blood or ask for another cup to drink, but I promise I will end by praying “not my will but yours be done.”

And then we can see where it goes from there?

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