christianity doesn't work

"Any hope of subduing (Leviathan) is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering" (Job 41, 9)

In our incredible human presumption, we have all felt that there must be some way to tame the evil that both surrounds and permeates us. We have all clung to the hope that there must be some method, if not to avoid suffering entirely, then at least to get the upper hand on it. And from time to time we seem sincerely and ardently to believe that we have found it, this master key to life. We think we have hit upon some secret, some answer to the riddle of pain, some formula that can be applied to all of our problems. And it works! It really does. It works, perhaps, for quite a while. For a good long time we may find that we have a goodly measure of peace and happiness in this world. Hurray! We have discovered the secret! Christians, of all people, may be the most prone to this foolishness. After all, the claims of the gospel are so extraordinarily lavish. No other belief or philosophy promises what Christ does, nor comes even close. So it can be most disheartening for the Christian to come face to face with the enemy of our souls, with manifest evil, and to plead earnestly to the Lord for help, only to recieve the answer that Job received in Job 41, 9: "Any hope of subduing him is false." At such times it is as if the Lord were to say to us, "With all your theology, with all your faith, with all the spiritual secrets you know, still you cannot lead the Devil around by the nose." Not only that, but "if you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again!" (41, 8).
Most of the world's religious and philosophical systems are advanced by people who, in one way or another, appear to be on top of life's problems. In reality nobody is ever on top for very long; nobody leads Satan by the nose. But for a brief while, someone may seem to have discovered the "secret." Someone finds something that "works", and then he writes a book, founds a cult, starts a movement. He is on top, and so he preaches to those who are still on the bootom, working their way up.
But this is not the Christian way. No, the central message of Christianity is not preached by someone who is on top. Rather, it is preached by someone who is at the vey bottom of the heap: hanging on a cross. The gospel is the message of a loser, not of a winner.
To be sure, Christ wins in the end. he conquers death and rises from the grave to live forevermore (something which, incidentally, no other religious leader has ever done, nor even claimed to do).
And yet, it is not primarily on the basis of the resurrection that the gospel is preached. Christ's victory over death is vital, and without His teaching would be worthless. But the fundamental platform of Christianity is not the platform of success, but of what appears to be total defeat: the cross. The cross ist the pulpit in which God stood to preach His greatest sermon, and it is also the only pulpit where anyone else may stand and rightfully preach to others. As disciples of Christ we stand on our weakness, not on our strength.
Of all the answers to the world's problems, the gospel is the only one whose primary claim is not that it works, but that it doesn't work. No doubt it works better than anything else, for "we know that in all things God works for the good of thos who love him" (Romans 8, 28). But built into the gospel is a frank admission that (at least in worldly terms) it canot work perfectly, because the world itself in unworkable, defunct. It doesn't work because human beings are no longer viable creatures, no longer operable in their fallen state. It cannot work bacause humanity stands condemned and so is not worth a plugged nickel. Other theologies try to do something with the plugged nickel. But Christianity throws the worthless thing away, nails it to cross. A Christian's life is good for nothing except crucifixion.
This is why true faith is not something that runs along smoothly and efficiently. Rather, it has a built-in tendency to fall apart at the seams. According to Paul faith regularly finds itself "hard pressed", "perplexed", "struck down" (2 Cor. 4, 8.9). The very fact that faith looks to a power beyond itself means that it is continually subject to loss of control. So if you're looking to get control of all your problems, forget Christianity. If your're looking for success, hapiness, or freedom from pain, forget Christ. The way of Christ is the cross, and the cross spells weakness, poverty, failure, death. This is what stands at the center of this "system"; this is the door at which Jesus knocks, If you want to follow Jesus, give up any idea of trying to control Leviathan. If you want to follow Jesus, get it through your mind that your are going to suffer unspeakably at the hands of evil. Get that one little thing straight, says the gospel, and the rest will be smooth sailing.

(From the book "The Gospel According to Job", by Mike Mason, Crossway Books, 1994)