After years of living, cynicism seems inevitable. Carey Nieuwhof, in his book Didn’t See It Coming, lists cynicism as one of the surprising fights of his life. “Almost invisibly,” he explains, “I started to doubt people and suspect people’s motives and then my own. I started to expect ‘ministry’ to be hard and painful—bracing myself for a daily grind and expecting people to disappoint me.”
He describes leaving the field of law, but before he did, he looked around at the unhappiness of the other highly successful lawyers he met. He felt like ministry would be different, but his cynicism only grew as he interacted with people and they disappointed him.
What if instead of proving and pleasing everyone, we got off the path of ascension and chose to admit the truth about our humanness? What if we allowed our poverty of spirit and mourning to lead us to God? And what if God led us to our Shalom center? What if that journey began to transform the way we think about God—moving us from a big, scary, distant and judgmental God to a loving, open, welcoming and transforming one? And what if every part of us was welcome in that place? Every part. Every shameful history, every fear, every “not enough,” every doubt, welcomed to be met with perfect love. And what if perfect love could fill us? What if the perfect love that we are enough—and that we are loved as we are and as we are becoming all that we were created to be—began to overflow out of our lives and into the world?
I think it would change some things.
I had a friend, a colleague, who crashed and burned in his own journey. Leaving his wife and kids and abandoning his faith, one day he just walked out the door and left his entire life behind. I already knew people had issues and everyone is human, but it disturbed me; it scared me. Mostly because we didn’t see it coming. A few of our friends met up and debriefed. What had happened? How long had it been going on? Why couldn’t we see it? Why didn’t we help?
It turned out that he didn’t want help, or at least was too proud to admit he needed it or to receive it. Most likely, even if we had offered, we wouldn’t have been able to do much since you can’t help someone who won’t help themselves. But it also turned out that we needed help as well.
At the time, I was struggling and not many people knew. Struggling with my calling and my identity and my own disappointments in people and even in myself. But I kept it to myself. On that day, talking with those friends, I knew that if I continued to lead on externally but limp on internally, it would be a matter of time before I’d also crash and burn. We asked ourselves this question, “Are we still following Jesus?” I know it sounds like a leap, but you’ve been reading about rooting out cynicism and despair from our foundation in order to be free of it in our day-to-day lives. So it’s not much of a stretch at all.
The question was less about a crisis of faith and more about intentional practice. We all knew we “followed” Jesus. We believed in him—most of us were “professional” Christians. I regularly told people about Jesus and invited them to follow him from platforms around the world. We weren’t asking one another if we believed; we were asking if we followed. And that is a different question. And here is why it matters: If we stop critiquing and start living our faith, cynicism must go.
Practice is the key to stopping the tape and turning off the spectator lens that allows cynicism to thrive. Let me explain. I’m cynical about prayer sometimes. Does it work? Does it matter? Am I the most undisciplined pray-er in the world? And this goes on in my head repeatedly, until I either give in to cynicism and start to believe that no one really practices a life of prayer and even if they do it doesn’t matter—or … I pray. Cynicism lives in the theoretical distance, keeping me spectating instead of participating, robbing me of the one thing that would actually answer my questions— prayer.
When those questions start arising, I remind myself of who I am and who God is—a posture shift. And then I pray. I start praying. I use apps or just talk out loud (if I’m alone), and if I’m really into it I use my body as I pray. I kneel or hold up my hands or dance it out. I pray. And do you know what happens when I start praying instead of thinking about praying?
Something shifts. Cynicism leaves me. Cynicism in our own lives and toward other people is dislodged through our actions (aka practice).
This also explains why some of the most hopeful people I’ve ever met are knee- deep in the muck and the mire of global issues, busy helping others. When I ask my friend who works with refugees how she feels about the future of the world, she’ll definitely tell me the limitations and the frustrations and list the statistics (honesty), but she will also tell me of her friend, a refugee, who is living a beautiful life and helping others (hope). This might also explain the long-term behavior that those in recovery offer as the solution for maintaining your sobriety: helping others. Seriously. Millions of people have figured out that if you want to keep living a happy, full and healthy life, you should help others. I think this is because helping others keeps us present. Hope is produced in the present tense, not the past or the future. Hope is a beautiful byproduct of faithful practice in the present. An overwhelming amount of our thought life is based on past events or future dread. But our prayer life? Our real life? Our serving life? Our daily life? That is happening right now. And hope is found right now. That’s why our practice (what we do) is essential for cultivating a life of hope.
Excerpted from The Other Side of Hope by Danielle Strickland. Copyright © 2022 by Danielle Strickland. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson Publishing. HarperCollinsChristian.com.
