When God Feels Far with a Special Guest

December 03, 2020

Jennie Allen

Bible teacher, founder of IF:Gathering

We're talking about indifference and what we're supposed to do in the midst of a pandemic when it feels impossible to carry the burden of the world on our shoulders. We can't! We all know that deep down, but what do we do? The easiest thing to do is to check out and stop caring. My friend Jen is going to share with you a little bit about her story of living in a place that wasn't always safe and was very different from the culture we live in here. Jen and I have been friends for many years and she was a part of our church plant. She's been a huge influence in my daughter Kate's life. She helped us raise her in the midst of that church plant! Jen felt called to go to places a lot of people wouldn't go - even today I don't know a lot of the countries she's been to. Even though she lived in a place that wasn't always safe and carried unimaginable burdens every day, she has never lost her tender heart. She has never lost the sensitivity I saw in her as a young-20 something.

Thank you so much for being here Jen! Why don't we start by sharing a little bit about where you've been the last 7 years?

Thank you Jennie! I've been overseas for the past 7 years in Africa. I went over as an English teacher. My heart and my goal was to go over and love on people and serve people in the name of Jesus. I recognized there was so much I would learn as well, but I got to a point in life where I was ready for a change. I did a 40 day prayer journey back in 2011 and just asked Jesus where he would lead me next. At that time when I was praying, my heart wasn't to go across an ocean. But through seeking his word and asking him what he had for me, I was led to this community in East Africa. There was a strong Isalmic culture that is protected and honored there. I was obviously going in as a Jesus follower, but I had a heart to go be with these people and to learn what it means to love your neighbor and to love another culture. I took off in 2013 and was there until March of this year when the pandemic hit. When COVID-19 hit, I had to come back to the states. I had already anticipated leaving this summer in 2020, then just had to do an early departure in March. I had about 72 hours to leave my home of 7 years and these people I love and still love dearly. I miss them all the time. But that's the background of where I was.

Talk about life over there. What was it like? What did you love about it?

The food was amazing, for one thing. We had amazing, vibrant culinary selections everyday. The people were the most hospitable, kind, open-hearted precious people. One of the things that was so dear to me in the whole journey was coming from an American faith culture, it's easy to forget how much of God there is to be experienced outside of our culture. Whether it was Christians who were living in the country I was in who had so much to teach me or whether it was my Muslim neighbors who have also surrendered their lives to their idea of God and built their lives around that. God used them to speak straight to my heart and my own faith. This is biblical but we miss it a lot: God is far outside of our American church culture. He does some really profound and miraculous things through the world around us. That's one of the things I will always love when I reflect on that journey is what I learned about him outside of what I was accustomed to.

Tell us a story about that!

About 8 months after we arrived in 2013, I was arrested on suspicion of terrorism. There was a lot of instability in the region I was in. There were good reasons for local law enforcement to wonder about me - an American, Jesus-following girl living in the midst of a strong Islamic community. As believers, our lives don't always make sense to the world around us. There had been some insecurity, instability, and attacks in the region. So I was arrested and interrogated for about 3 days. That's a long, long story, but in the midst of those interrogations, one of my neighbors who was a Muslim, came up to the poice station to defend me. He came to protect me and speak on behalf of my character. He had only known me for 8 months. When he showed up at the station, he was wearing a shirt from the YMCA and it had Joshua 1:9 across the front. Again, I had just been arrested, I was in the midst of very intense interrogations, and my heart is racing. I honestly don't remember much of how I felt in that moment, but I so clearly remember seeing his shirt. I knew what Joshua 1:9 said, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." To watch my Muslim neighbor walk into the police station with these words from the Lord straight to me, in the midst of this terrifying reality. I said to him, "do you know what's on your shirt?" He said, "yeah, I think it's from the Bible." I said, "do you know what it says?" I told him what the verse said and he said, "God sent me here with a message for you." There's this profund moment where this Muslim man is able to say this message from your Holy Book is for you from God. That was very shocking to me. I didn't have to be surrounded by my normal ways of worship and community. God is going to meet me right where I'm at with the people around me, whether they follow Jesus or not. He's going to walk them right in with a message for me. In fact, after the first night of interrogations, the officers wanted to keep me in jail overnight, and my neighbor stood on my behalf and said, "don't do that to her. Let her go home and sleep." I didn't know this until later, but he signed a piece of paper that if I fled in the night, he would serve jail time. There was this Christ-like, sacrifical love coming through this Muslim neighbor. I can't think of experiencing that type of love from another believer in my life. Not because they wouldn't do that, but they've never had to. I will forever have a different and deeper understanding of that sacrificial love for a neighbor because of him - not because I was demonstrating it to him. He came to me and demonstrated it to me.

We're talking about indifference this week and I would love to hear what was difficult about being there. I'm sure there were nights that you felt alone. What were some of the things you were feeling, being so far away from home in a culture totally different than ours. 

When I was arrested, I ended up being cleared from any terrorism charges pretty quickly. But our case ended up turning into an immigration case...They tried to accuse us of immigration crimes that weren't true. That case lasted 10 months and in the midst of that 10 months, so many things happened. One of the most significant was that my grandfather died in the midst of that. During the case, they had taken our passports, so we were stuck there. For security and legal reasons, we couldn't even share with our family members what was going on. A lot of people back home didn't have any idea what was happening. My grandfather was a hero to me and our entire family. He had been diagnosed with cancer days before I left to go overseas. As I was headed out to go overseas and he was diagnosed with cancer, it was so shocking and bizarre, that I rationalized it as the enemy and spiritual warfare. I decided to stay the course and go, thinking that would make God heal him. Because if I'm obedient, then God will heal and overcome the work of the enemy. I was a year into this journey and God had not healed my grandfather and then he died in the midst of this trial. We were also in a security crisis because of this trial, but also because of where we physically were. We ended up evacuating because of the instability - the same week my grandfather died. The emotions in all of those experiences was so heightened, that I shut down completely. I couldn't stand to feel anything. We had 13 court dates in the midst of that 10 months, and when you go to an East African court room (I don't want to be stereotypical in any sense) but we were in a village court house, and it was not comfy. They are often mobile and meet in abandoned school buildings and other places like that. There's no air conditioning, they're not comfortable, and they're packed full of people. You sit there for hours and are just sweating and have no real sense of when you can take a break. There was one day after my grandfather passed that we were sitting in court, and we were so packed in that we all had to stand. I started to have this anxiety come over me and my whole body started shaking - I had never experienced anything like that. My body was physically shaking even though my brain was kind of shut down. Tears started pouring out of my eyes and I kept saying, "Jen, you can't cry. You can't cry." I didn't want to give the impression that I was cracking under pressure because I was guilty or something. I felt like the way I handled myself would give an indication of guilt or innocence. So I'm standing there crying and shaking, but I remember praying, "Lord, I need you. I need your presence. It's the only thing that is going to pull me back together." It was silent and dark. I would love to tell you some angel appeared to me or his Spirit flooded into the room and consumed me, but it didn't. That was a turning point for me in the way my faith held during the rest of that journey. There was a spectrum of emotions and feelings in me after that moment, but there was a sense that if I can be in the midst of this unbelievable suffering and God's presence isn't there, then what am I doing this for? What is the point of my faith? What is the point of following Jesus? If all I ask Jesus for was his presence and I didn't feel it, then why am I doing this? I went through this really interesting season where I asked a lot of questions. I've always known in me that if God is real, then he is loving. I've never had that thing where God is real, but he's spiteful. I've never thought that. My thought process after that incident was he's not loving, because he didn't help me on that day, therefore he's not real. But there were other days where I believed he was real, but I felt like there was nothing I could do to move his hand or his heart. He just is going to do what he's going to do. He's loving, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to feel like love to me. He's an author and I'm words on a page and I'm just being moved around at his will. I felt like I was being sacrificed for his plan. It was a dark season for months, and it took me a long time to be honest about that. You want to tell everybody that in the midst of your darkest pain, he's going to show up and flood your soul with his comfort. But I couldn't say that. That scared me for myself, but also for others. What was I inviting other people into? If he's not going to show up in that way?

I love what you just did because you took us into the guts of that experience and in doing so, you kind of showed us theologically what was happening. I want to say this: any of you struggling with faith, and if you've read Get Out of Your Head or been a part of this podcast for long, you know that was a toxic spiral I was on for 18 months. I know that dark feeling of not thinking he's there. But theologically, a lot was going on. That's what I want to say to any of you struggling with your faith. Don't just struggle. Unpack it. Jen just did that work and she can tell you what she was believing wrongly about God and how that was affecting her. That probably is because you did a lot of work later to understand that. What we think about God matters more than we could possibly imagine. In that moment, you didn't feel anything, you're questioning your faith, what happens next?

It was a lot of days of that, but I look back at my journal sometimes, and on one hand I remember this darkness and apathy and indifference. Indifference is scary because it goes past anger or confusion. If you've ever had any relationship with a human and you move past frustration and into indifference, that's a scary place to be. It feels scary. I remember now looking back that that's what I felt. That was my primary memory. I was so indifferent to the Lord and what he was doing. I had lost a sense of choice. I had chosen to go where he called, now all of the sudden I was stuck there! I don't get to go home now. I'm stuck with him. I felt like he had taken away my choice and my freedom to serve him. We all have different parts of ourselves, so it can be true that part of you is wholly indifferent. That might be the primary part that is manifesting itself to the world. But there might still be other parts of you that are really tender and wrestling and unwilling to submit to that. When I look at my journals, I see where I'm talking to God, praying, and being very honest about how I feel. I think we have to be careful when we lose the nuance and complexity of who we are. We're made in the image of God and we are the most complex being that will ever exist! To blanket statement say I was indifferent and apathetic is unfair to the complexity of who I was in those months. I was still wrestling, but it really came from this thought that if I don't have him, I don't have anything. I don't even have a passport! I prayed that in my journals! God, if you do not show up, I don't have anything left. If you're not real, then what on earth am I going to do with life? How do I live and move forward not believing this? I got to that pit where you think there's nothing left on earth for you. Those months that followed, our case was dropped in February of 2015. It was miraculous and beautiful and freeing. What the Lord led me to do was in January before our case was dropped, I did a solitude retreat. I went for 5 days out in the woods by myself. I remember having this image in my mind while I was out there that my being was this tangled up ball of yarn. I just sat and knew I had to take all these threads one by one. I have to take the grief of losing my grandfather and stretch it out and work through that. I have to take the grief of this trial and every fear that I have and pull them apart. So for 5 days I did that. At the end of that, I was reading about Jesus and Bartimaeus where Jesus asks, "what do you want me to do for you?" That was this key moment of feeling Jesus again and feeling his presence and hearing him ask me the same thing... After this retreat, I got to this place where I could start talking to him again. That was a month before the case ended. I'm forever grateful that the trial ending was not the catalyst to being restored in relationship with my Lord. I can say it was not dependent on the circumstances of what was happening, but it was in the woods that I asked Jesus for what I wanted, and I will trust you again. But I felt that sense again that even if he doesn't give me those things, he's still good. 

This is beautiful and I hate it for you, because you're my friend, not just some podcast person I'm interviewing. I was a prayer warrior alongside of you during this time. I remember you sitting in my living room long after it was over, and hearing the story. I was broken-hearted for you, yet knowing that the evidence of God being with you was so obvious to me. How do you look back at it now? Do you see him in it even then? What does that wrestling look like today? Not to tie it up with a bow, because I don't think it's that simple, but I do imagine you see the same thing.

Every day you could ask me that question and I have a different answer. I can absolutely see him when I look back...The grief of losing my grandfather during that time still is with me today. The idea that he never knew I went through this and as long as I'm on this earth I won't have that conversation with him to get his wisdom and insight and hear his heart on it. There are still times now where I look back and say, "God, I don't know why you did that or what meaning there is." But I'm getting better at resting and saying that's okay. It's just okay to not know. I don't have to make meaning out of it to trust you. I know one of the biggest lessons for me in all this is that God is as concerned about my sanctification as he is about anyone else's salvation. My sanctification is so important to him that he's going to let me walk this road. He's going to let me go places where I am crushed. I am in some ways brought down completely low, in order that I'm in such deep and tremendous need of him. So when I look back, I can't make sense of those moments, I can't make sense of the decisions he made, I can't make sense of why when I'm standing on trial that day and having an utter panic attack, why was it dark? I don't know...It reminds me of when Peter says, "Jesus, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life that we have believed in and have come to know you are the holy one of God" (John 6:68).I know what Peter is saying there and have now internalized that. For the rest of my life I know there's nowhere else to go for me. I know the darkness you can feel when everything in the world is taken away, if you don't have Jesus to stand on...I know there's nothing better in the world and nothing greater in the world than having this thing that I stand on. I look back and don't know why those circumstances happened, but I know that my faith is gritier and deeper and real than it's ever been. I'm more passionate about it and I'm more passionate about knowing my Lord and walking with him. There are still days where I don't feel him. It can still feel really quiet some days. That doesn't scare me the way it used to. Apathy and indifference doesn't scare me the way it used to. It doesn't feel as terrifying of reality having gone through that really long season.

I want you to speak to that person listening who feels like they're in a fog, who feels like they're apathetic and can't shake it.

There's so much I would want to say, and then in other ways I would just want to sit with them. The first thing I would say is I'm sorry. I know how scary it is. There's a million reasons we get to apathy and end up at indifference, but I know that it's terrifying. I'm sorry for that I'm sad if you're experiencing that. I think in this season of the world particularly, it is natural. We have a responsibility to kind of normalize some of these experiences. As a community of faith, we have a responsibility to one another to tell these stories and normalize what we're going through. My circumstances may have been unique, but what the reality of what it did to my faith is not. You can get where I was here in the United States or overseas or wherever. Jesus didn't come to shield us from these things. He didn't come to shield us from emotions or the reality of experiencing grief, loss, or apathy. He came to dignify that and enter in so that he is able to stay with you, be there, and get it. He has his own humanity that can stand in front of you, beside you, behind you, in the midst of these things. What I would encourage anybody who's in that to do is first let it be what it is before you go wielding it off with every sword you can find. Acknowledge it. Say what it is. Sit there with it for a minute. It can be such a scary emotion that we start doing everything in our power to scramble. Some of us pull out this performative faith where we think we need to pray more, read my Bible more, do whatever more. Others of us will just shut down completely. I would say there's a middle ground where we can just receive it and say, "this is what I'm experiencing, and now is the time to learn who Jesus is in the midst of my apathy and indifference to him and watch the way he's going to pursue me for however long it takes." Like I said, we all get there in so many different ways. My apathy was born out of an overwhelming grief and loss. I had a year of loss upon loss upon loss. I couldn't take feeling that anymore, so I just shut off all emotion. When you shut down the hard emotions, you also shut down emotions like joy. You become this numb being. That's where mine came from. Other times we're coming into apathy for a variety of other reasons. A lot of it is just figuring out where it comes from. I had to go deal with that grief. It wasn't even safe for me to process that grief for 2 more years after that happened! I kind of walked around in a fog for a couple years after my trauma. It took awhile for me to be safe to process all that and come back to life. A lot of it is figuring out where it started...One of the things I did in the midst of my season was I wrote myself a letter. I just said everything I wanted my future self to know. When I look at that letter, I grieve for that girl. It helps me not look back with condemnation on myself. In this letter I wrote, "Jen, you're doing the best you can. All evidence points to the fact that God doesn't exist, but you want to believe he does." I told myself all these things. I think when we do that, it helps your future self look back and discern rightly what was going on...Another thing is let somebody sing over you and read the scriptures over you. If you've got kids, have one of your kids come in and just read to you from the word. That is what this community of faith is for. It's okay to say you're apathetic, to not want to open the word, to not want to praise and worship, but you can let somebody do that over you and receive it. That is what the community of faith is meant to be to one another in these seasons. It's why it's important to normalize these experiences so we're more equipped to serve and love one another in true Christ-centered love.