I know we were supposed to talk about our destination this time, but I think we need to cover a few things and build a little foundation before we embark on our journey together.
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I want to start with a couple of questions – just how much should we question our conventional beliefs or our conventional teaching, preaching or interpretations of the Bible? Is it ok to question? Where do you draw the line?
Before you say we shouldn’t question, Jacob wrestled with God, Abraham argued with God about Sodom and Gomorrah, and Moses told God to kill him if was going to kill all Israel and start over. I hate it when I ask a difficult question and get the Sunday school answer. One of my favorite teachers always says that you need to run any theology by the graves at Auschwitz, where millions (men, women, and children) were killed by the Germans. Explain that with a simple Sunday school answer.
Just think about it. How did Jesus teach? Parables. Did he ever give a straight answer? What does that say about Him. He wants us to figure it out. He wants us to chew on it. He doesn’t even mind if we get it wrong first. The disciples never got it right. He wants us to the think about it. He wants us to be hungry and to seek Him.
The whole journey of life is about the seeking. Most of my life in church was about coming to get the answer and not to question anything. But the last 15 years has been all about the questions and the wrestling. I won’t say is all been fun, but I feel like that I’m closer to God because I did.
He wants us to dig in and when we really dig in there will be questions. So, we can’t be scared of the hard questions. We can’t be afraid of losing our salvation or our walk with God. He designed us and the Kingdom this way. I believe when we wrestle with God, it’s a sign that we do have faith. There’s nothing wrong with you. When we ask questions, we have the faith that our relationship with God is strong enough to stand against any questions or doubts and its worth fighting for.
For instance, one thing that I know that I believe is that God is love. If I can’t ultimately believe that, I have no hope. So, I know that any question that I have has to come back to God is love, somehow, no matter how twisted the situation is.
When all those bad things happened to Job, he called God the adversary! How many of us have been brave enough to do that? But, in the end God said that Job was his servant and he spoke right, and the others didn’t. What was right about what Job said? Maybe it was that Job was just honest with no fluff or religious rhetoric.
Here is a question for all of us. Do we have the kind of relationship that we can be wrong before God or do we suppress our questions and doubts and put on a performance pretending to know everything?
Maybe you have some questions. Like, God, why do people talk about joy and happiness and I never experience it myself? Or God, why do I feel down or stressed out most the time? Or maybe, why can’t I feel You like other people say they do? What’s wrong with me? Or maybe it’s something like – many people act like God is directing every step of their life and I have no idea which direction I’m going?
I want to say there’s nothing wrong with you. That is the journey. That is life. Those are all things that we need to be wrestling with God. The more we wrestle, the closer we get to Him.
One thing is for certain, I can’t live with the Sunday school answers anymore. This journey that you will take with me, From Egypt to the Promised Land, will be full of hard questions and sometimes no answers. But I promise we will be closer to God. Are you ready to take the trip?
The Destination waits for us.
Bill
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