When I was an atheist-leaning agnostic, I considered faith in God and even more so organized religion to be a crutch for people who couldn't make it through life without some kind of fairy tale omniscient being and the false hope of a happily-ever-afterlife. I'm not sure exactly where I picked up my tendency towards cynicism and toxic independence, but it absolutely came to a head and became directed towards religion for a good portion of my late teens and nearly all of my twenties. I became arrogant in my prideful self-determination, and while I struggled with my bootstraps, you bet I also looked at all of those crutch-wielding Christians as just a pathetic example of those who couldn't weather the storms of their lives without a life vest. I had handled some pretty decent storms without believing in God, what was wrong with these people? Pull it together. Stop with the crutch.
And then I came back to the Church in a real and heavy way, and sort of judged my former self very similarly to how I had judged all of those religious crutch-clingers. How could I have ever said that faith and religion were a crutch?! If Christianity is the Truth, it can't be just a crutch of folly to help us avoid a mental health crisis or two as we muddle through life. I've learned personally that it is SO much more than that. It is an objective reality. It is thousands of years of history and tradition. It is scientifically unexplained miracles. It is the lives of the saints, real stories of real people whose lives have positively altered the course of human history. So I judged my former self for being so arrogantly and ignorantly judgy.
But on this Easter, as I reflect on who and what I am, primarily, I am broken and in need of saving. That's what Easter is all about. Jesus came to save us all from ourselves and our broken tendencies towards things that damage our bodies, minds, and souls. Yes, He died and rose again in order to break lose the chains of death, and to open up the gates of heaven. But He doesn't just desire us to finish the race of life, He desires wholeness, integration, healing, peace, and joy in the here and now. He doesn't desire for us to simply fumble and superficially float through this life to the finish line, He wants us to enjoy life in the supernatural sense - deeply, with self-knowledge and mastery, with true joy and contentment and personal fulfillment. But as for me, I am dysfunctional, at best. My attachments are disordered. I cry when I should laugh, sometimes I laugh when I should cry. I'm quick to anger and slow to nurture. I seek affirmation, comfort, distraction in all the wrong places. And even going on ten years since my conversion, I am still drawn to cynicism, negativity, and prideful judgment of others. I lack self-control, particularly in my desire to control everything and everyone else. And while I can't speak for anyone else, as near as I can tell, I'm not alone here. Even St. Paul hits on it - I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Romans 7:14) Again. Let me repeat. I. Am. Broken.
When someone has a broken leg, do we look at them with arrogant disgust, thinking, "how pathetic that they need a crutch!?" Or perhaps a better comparison - when someone has an infection, do we judge them for needing antibiotics? When someone has cancer, do we scoff at them for seeking surgery and chemo? When someone has failing lungs, do we stick our noses up at their oxygen supply?
I need my faith. While I know that it is the objective Truth, I see now that it can simultaneously be that very crutch that I once looked down upon. Because I am broken and I need help walking and staying upright. But also because this world is broken. It is severely broken, and as the saying goes, hurt people hurt other people. And the more and deeper we keep inflicting wounds upon each other in our brokenness, the more we all really need the crutch of faith to hold us all upright, to help us keep on walking and moving forward towards personal growth and healing. Looking at the darkness that has settled upon our modern world, I invite us all to take up our crutches daily. Needing Jesus to get through life is nothing to be ashamed of. It's actually precisely what He desires, precisely the way it should be.