Caught Up in the Questions
For the past few years, despite the fact I am adding years to my faith walk, my questions concerning faith issues have become stronger, deeper and more frightening in that the answers seem more elusive than ever. It seems the more years I add to my faith walk, the more questions I have and the more unsettled I feel by the fact I don’t have all the answers. I struggle to reconcile what I know of Scripture to questions that should not be plaguing me at this point in my life… unsettled I feel by the fact I don’t have all the answers. I struggle to reconcile what I know of Scripture to questions that should not be plaguing me at this point in my life…or at least I don’t want them to plague me. I feel I should “be past all that!”
Part of this could simply be that from August of 2020 until May of 2023 I was immersed in the world of intensive theology while in school getting my masters in Practical Theology. My job for nearly three years was to ask the hard questions. That said, what stunned me more than anything was that during that time, I wasn’t wrestling with the super hard theological questions, but the ones that are what a Christian would call more basic faith. I mean what the what?! I should have had this locked down a long time ago!
And yet…
I found myself wrestling and at times still wrestling with some of the more basic faith issues.
“Why would God create a world with the possibility of evil?”
“How could a God who cannot tolerate evil, somehow still create a world that allowed for it? Where did evil come from in the first place then?”
“Do I really believe?” (to hear wonderful thoughts on answering that question and saving faith, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzlM8Lx0LPg. Start at minute 36:00)
“Despite my belief in Jesus, do I really believe? Could I still go to hell?” My pastor Grandpa had a good answer for that question: “If you are afraid of going to hell, you are not headed there because if you are, you don’t care either way.”
Believe me, I sensed the great irony that I was getting my MA in Practical Theology and I was wrestling with questions that were a lot more simple in their answers when I was a child. Why were the answers more simple? Because I wasn’t asking the questions. I just believe that I loved Jesus and more than that, Jesus loved me and died for me. The end.
But that is the point, isn’t it? Faith like a child isn’t just something Jesus suggested because it is a good practice, but because as adults we can get so caught up in the theology and questions we forget that faith is all God asks for from us.
That is NOT to say questions, theology and wrestling with faith are unwelcome to God. He welcomes all of that and more. However, He never wants us to lose sight of all He asks from us is faith, even if we don’t have the answers to the questions.
And hopefully in the wrestling and asking questions comes a strengthening of faith, a growth in our knowledge of God. Those are wonderful gifts given by God. But we still must keep them in perspective so as not to overwhelm our faith with questions to the point we are questioning our faith itself.
As a famed theologian Karl Barth said when asked how he would encapsulate all the theology he ever learned and preached, he answered with, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Amen.