If I fall again, will it be the end?
I know it’s wrong, you think I’m strong, but I just pretend
Is it takin’ over, will it bury me?
Or will clarity become the cure for my disease?
(Beartooth, “Disease” from Disease, 2018 Red Bull Records)
Fallen Again
My purpose in this post is not to exegete any Scripture. My purpose is to share with you, my beloved audience, where I am currently at. I do this with the goal of providing hope to you, in whatever you are facing, as well as for myself as I struggle to find who I am. It has been a tough couple of weeks. I have lost my closest friends, my job, and have found myself at the lowest depths imaginable.
It’s all too familiar. I have been here before, but this time it’s different. I stand before the shadow of death and cannot decide whether to accept or reject it. The scars, the broken relationships, the shattered bottles and broken records, spinning on repeat. What have I done this time? How have I fallen so low—again? I have forsaken God—has he forsaken me, too?
Jacob’s Ladder
At the back of my mind, the 1990 film Jacob’s Ladder plays over and over again. In this film, we meet Jacob Singer, an infantryman in the Vietnam War who struggles to cope with reality as he returns from war. Or at least, that’s what it seems from the beginning. Singer is a sufferer—he has lost his friends in war, his child in a devastating car accident, and the love of his life. Throughout the movie, these losses haunt him. Literally.
Near the end of the movie, we learn what has been going on with Singer. He was part of a military experiment in the Vietnam War. He and his allies were given a drug that turns them into monsters of war, literal killing machines. That was the goal of this drug. But instead of killing the enemy, they kill each other. By the end, you know that Singer is not struggling with reality; he is struggling to cope with the fact that he is already dead.
In the present, as we may call it, Singer is infatuated with the concepts of death and hell. Dante’s Inferno certainly plays a major influence in the movie. Our hero is seeing demons, having visions that the people close to him are, in actuality, out to destroy him. He cannot find hope. Until the end of the movie, when he accepts that his existence is no longer and he ascends the stairwell of his former home with his deceased son. In the last scene, we see singer laid up in an infirmary in Vietnam. His dog tag is taken, and he is pronounced dead, and at peace.
A Biblical Metaphor
The film’s title comes from the Old Testament. The source of inspiration is found in Genesis 28:10-22, where the patriarch has a vision of a mediator between heaven and earth. Verse 12 summarizes: “He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” This story is open to interpretation, with many contemporary Christian scholars believing the ladder to represent Jesus, the mediator between God and earth.
My purpose here is not to focus on the symbolism, however. As I have struggled to recoup and regain myself, I have found myself examining the promises of God in the Bible. I try not to make too much of these in my content on Living by the Logos. My reason being, I seek to avoid the self-centered process of eisegesis; the method of looking at Scripture and asking “What does this mean for me?” Exegesis asks what Scripture means in its original context, and generally that is where my focus lies.
In Genesis 28:15, God tells Jacob, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” To my knowledge, God has not made any promises to me. But should that stop me from trusting in him?
My last post focused on Jeremiah 29:11, the most overrated (and misinterpreted) passage in Scripture, I believe. When I wrote this post, I was in a dark place. I was in a state of utter hopelessness. I needed hope, and I found it. God is not speaking to me in Jeremiah 29:11, and he certainly isn’t in Genesis 28:15. But these are words of hope. These are the words of a God who saves and redeems.
Whether we are the direct recipients or not, I believe we can find practical use in the Bible. Even at my worst, I cannot deny that there is a God out there. A being greater than me, and certainly stronger than my weaknesses and shortcomings. I do not expect him to work miracles in my favor every time I mess up, and neither should you. But if you believe that he is out there, you can rest in knowing that there is hope. There is always hope.
I messed up—again. I found myself at the bottom—again. And that feeling that has overtaken me so many times overtook me once more. That feeling is hopelessness. And try as I might to fight it on my own, I will fail. The result is always death. Whether mental, spiritual, or physical, I know that I alone cannot fight it.
When I picked a domain for this website, I wanted a title that could provide hope. It may come across as prideful, but I think it is unique, especially in the modern world. When we think of faith, we think of the church. We think of dogma. We think of legalism. I am not a Christian, by definition. What am I, then? I am a follower of the Word, the Logos.
The Bible does not answer all of life’s questions and problems. It does provide something indispensable, however. That is hope. A hope that the troubles we face are not permanent. A hope that our suffering will end. A hope that there is a God, who understands our heartache and works to better us and the world around us.
If he was willing to watch over Jacob, what should make us believe he will not watch over us?