hopeful

Thanks to everyone for your posted comments and emails. Each one has encouraged me. I’m thankful to have company on this journey.

Here's my thought for today. I know that faith always requires some sort of leap … that is the very nature of faith. But I long for certainty. Or at the very least clarity.

I’ve heard people say that there is truth to be found in Christianity. God’s wisdom is higher than ours, the argument goes. The truth is there. But our human sinfulness is what blinds us from it. So we can question and doubt. But if we truly expect God to reveal Himself, we must first believe that He’s going to. If we don’t first submit, we won’t recognize the truth when it’s presented.

But to me, honest questioning requires us not to believe we know the answer before we even ask the question.

A pastor I respect a lot (I’ve never met him, but his preaching and writing just seem to resonate with me) wrote (and forgive my very poor paraphrasing here) something like this:

I respect people who can come to their faith simply. Without struggle or questioning. But it wasn’t like that for me. I had to wrestle with it. I had to fight and claw for my faith.

That’s where I am now. If I can piece my faith back together, it will be hard-earned. Fought for. Turned upside down. I cannot have a faith that only works if I squeeze my eyes shut. I need an eyes-wide-open kind of faith.

I have a friend who told me (paraphrasing again) that the way she experiences God most fully is when she is in deep pursuit of Him, and when she recognizes that He is in deep pursuit of her. She sees great beauty in the struggle. Something about that gives me such hope. Like all the questioning is chasing God. Not running away.

I came across a page today (I listen to this guy’s podcast from time to time). He calls himself a hopeful skeptic. A hopeful skeptic. I like that a lot.