On feeling like a bad person

I am feeling like I am a bad person. I don’t want to be afraid to feel that, if that is what is coming up for me, but I have no idea what it would take to feel like a good person. I feel like my faith has been shattered but right now I want to fake it till I make it and pray. Quakers do not talk much about sin, it seems, but I do not know how to feel whole and pure if I do not acknowledge sin (missing the mark) and pray for forgiveness. I do not think there is a person that can convince me I am forgiven my trespassed and I doubt it is within the power of my own psychology to forgive myself. I must have faith, somewhere, if reading Bible verses comforts me, if reading Kierkegaard comforts me…

I started reading Kierkeggard’s Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death. He begins with a story of a child who heard the story of Abraham’s temptations and his trial of faith. He wishes, not to see the Promised Land, for that might well have been Denmark, but to be there to accompany Abraham as he takes Isaac on the three day journey to Mount Moriah where he is to be sacrificed. This was the child’s one deepest longing. Kierkegaard then writes of Abraham returning to Mount Moriah asking God to forgive him his sin for surely it must be sin to be willing to sacrifice the most precious thing you have… even if such was commanded by God. To have been Abraham, I would not wish that on anyone, but he was great, and a hero for the generations.

Kierkegaard’s words are full of intriguing paradox: “If Abraham had wavered, he would have given it up. If he had said to God, ‘Then perhaps it is not after all Thy will that it should come to pass, so I will give up the wish. It was my only wish, it was my bliss. My soul is sincere, I hide no secret malice because Thou didst deny it to me’ — he would not have been forgotten, he would have saved many by his example, yet he would not be the father of faith. For it is great to give up one’s wish, but it is greater to hold it fast after having given it up, it is great to grasp the eternal, but it is greater to hold fast to the temporal after having given it up.”

And: “Abraham believed, therefore he was young; for he who always hopes for the best becomes old, and he who is always prepared for the worst grows old early, but he who believes preserves an eternal youth. Praise therefore to that story! For Sarah, though stricken in years, was young enough to desire the pleasure of motherhood, and Abraham, though gray-haired, was young enough to wish to be a father. In an outward respect the marvel consists in the fact that it came to pass according to their expectation, in a deeper sense the miracle of faith consists in the fact that Abraham and Sarah were young enough to wish, and that faith had preserved their wish and therewith their youth. He accepted the fulfilment of the promise, he accepted it by faith, and it came to pass according to the promise and according to his faith—for Moses smote the rock with his rod, but he did not believe.”

God “was only making sport of Abraham. He made miraculously the preposterous actual, and now in turn He would annihilate it… The glorious memory to be preserved by the human race, the promise in Abraham’s seed—this was only a whim, a fleeting thought which the Lord had had, which Abraham should now obliterate.”

“That sad and yet blissful hour when Abraham was to take leave of all that was dear to him, when yet once more he was to lift up his head, when his countenance would shine like that of the Lord, when he would concentrate his whole soul in a blessing which was potent to make Isaac blessed all his days—this time would not come! For he would indeed take leave of Isaac, but in such a way that he himself would remain behind; death would separate them, but in such a way that Isaac remained its prey. The old man would not be joyful in death as he laid his hands in blessing upon Isaac, but he would be weary of life as he laid violent hands upon Isaac. And it was God who tried him. Yea, woe, woe unto the messenger who had come before Abraham with such tidings! Who would have ventured to be the emissary of this sorrow? But it was God who tried Abraham.”

And this so far, is as far as I have read… I can’t say why it is speaking to me as it does. I cannot begin to imagine accompanying Abraham on that journey, or being Abraham, who lived in such faith and was commanded to obliterate the fruit of that faith. What does all of this mean? Were I Abraham I would have been crushed in despair at a much earlier stage.

How would I act as a good person? How would I know I was good? What actions can I take to know that I am not bad? Who can assure me of that? Right now, I do not know. How will I feel forgiven for what I feel has been a life of making every wrong turn, and no one who has witnessed my journey to affirm to me, somehow, I am still okay?

These days, somehow, I regret the person I was then, and I would be a much better person now, despite having no faith in my goodness; but if God would ever bring me again something like what came to me when he brought me Georgina, I think I would marry her, and feel something like what Abraham might have felt when he was finally granted his wish of a child with Sarah. But what has come may never come again and I do not see a turn on the path to make things right…

Like Abraham, I wish to have a child, and I just do not know how or whether it will come to pass. Is it selfish to bring a child into the world, if I am not steadfast in my faith that life is worth living? I feel guilty for my fears that there may be no ultimate meaning behind it all, that it is the sport of amusement of some random Big Bang. As Kierkegaard writes: “If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the foundation of all there lay only a wildly seething power which writhing with obscure passions produced everything that is great and everything that is insignificant, if a bottomless void never satiated lay hidden beneath all—what then would life be but despair? If such were the case, if there were no sacred bond which united mankind, if one generation arose after another like the leafage in the forest, if the one generation replaced the other like the song of birds in the forest, if the human race passed through the world as the ship goes through the sea, like the wind through the desert, a thoughtless and fruitless activity, if an eternal oblivion were always lurking hungrily for its prey and there was no power strong enough to wrest it from its maw—how empty then and comfortless life would be!” To want to bring a child into the world, I feel like a bad person; to resist the desire and never have children for lack of faith such as Kierkegaard describes here, or for having too much of a wandering soul to settle down, I feel like a bad oerson for that, too. What do I have to do to feel that my life is righteous and worthy? I don’t know…

Here are some verses of comfort for feeling like a bad person. I do not know what it will take to believe that I deserve faith in my deepest longings.

Romans 8:1:
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 34:18:
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

1 John 1:9:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Isaiah 1:18:
“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

Psalm 103:12:
“As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”

Psalm 31:1
“In You, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be ashamed; deliver me in Your righteousness.”

2 Corinthians 5:17:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Philippians 4:6-7:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 8:38-39:
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Hebrews 8:12:
“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”