Good evening (or afternoon, or evening...depending on when you read this and where you are at the time).
I hope to have short-CONCISE posts once in a while to just share what I'm thinking, but I wanted to start with a little background for me today....and it isn't short....or concise.
Here is my background from a spiritual perspective.
I grew up in a conservative Christian/Baptist home. Like many in my generation, I went through a period of crisis when I moved away from home. I wanted to question religion, the Bible, all of it....but I was terrified. To question what had been the foundation for my entire existence seemed truly scary. That, and I ran in similar circles to the ones I'd grown up in and I wanted to please people. So, I made a new profession of faith and kept up my acting like nothing was wrong.
It was in my mid-twenties that I finally admitted that I was truly agnostic. Just so we all know, an agnostic is: "a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience" (Dictionary. reference.com - agnostic). Now, I am not an English major so I didn't think in those terms but that is the jist of what I was dealing with and I finally stumbled onto the term "agnostic" and I felt a peace. No, not peace. I felt content that I could now define my frustrations, but no peace at all.
By this point I had gotten married and was involved at my local church. In case you aren't sure, that means that a crisis of faith is awkward and you feel like you can't tell anyone. What will they do? What will they think? How will they treat me? Will my "world" fall apart? I had no answers. So, I asked the only person I could think of and that was my pastor. Now, any skeptic out there is going to say, "Sure, ask the pastor. He's going to tell you what you want to hear and push you right back to where you were." Nice try, but wrong. In fact, my pastor looked at me and said, "Nate, I have no idea what you are going through. I don't understand your questions personally because I've never had the same doubts you have. But, we can talk, we can read a book and discuss it, whatever I can do to help, you let me know." That's right. He let me drive. (That's scary.)
So, I met with my pastor off and on for a few months. We read a book about faith. That book didn't help at all except to pin-point my problem. I didn't have an issue with faith. I understand that faith, on a simple and human level, is something we exercise daily. What I didn't have faith in was that the Bible was not just historical in parts, but in the whole. It wasn't a collection of historical documents sprinkled with spiritual hype to drug the masses. Believe me, this issue is settled in my life, but not in my reasoning.
I came to a point where I wanted to quit. I wanted to leave the church, leave my wife, leave it all behind and....what? Do what with myself? Go wallow in a hole and pretend the problem wasn't there? I couldn't do that. I wanted answers too much. I wanted to finish my "quest" to find either an answer or that there were no answers about God.
Sorry, this is long already and that wasn't my goal. I'm sure I'll put more pieces in as I go. However, to wrap it up, God has given me peace. I found a moment where I simply prayed, "God. I am going to trust that you exist and you are who the Bible says you are for one week and we'll go from there." Silly sounding, isn't it? Go ahead, admit it, I'm not offended. I'd also be lying if I told you that I have no doubts, no questions whatsoever. No, what I have is peace, more answers than I had before, more questions than I had before, and a belief in a God who loved me enough to send His son to die for me while I still hated Him. God, knowing that I was going to get hooked on addictions in my life, knowing that I would be a poor husband for years and a struggling father too, still loved me enough to send Christ to die for me (and you, by the way) and I can't let that go. Even if I don't understand it all, a never ending debt like that is too great for me to ignore. It is too great for me to be unthankful.
So, whether you have had your own struggles and found answers. Whether you have had your own struggles and are searching for answers. Whether you have never really had struggles because your "faith of a child" has followed you into adult-hood. Praise God that He loves you and He is pursuing you. I don't mean that everyone who reads this will become a Christian. I can't promise that everything will work out for you. I can't even promise you it's all going to work out for me. :o) What I can promise is that God pursues us because He loves us.
Happy Tuesday!
I hope to have short-CONCISE posts once in a while to just share what I'm thinking, but I wanted to start with a little background for me today....and it isn't short....or concise.
Here is my background from a spiritual perspective.
I grew up in a conservative Christian/Baptist home. Like many in my generation, I went through a period of crisis when I moved away from home. I wanted to question religion, the Bible, all of it....but I was terrified. To question what had been the foundation for my entire existence seemed truly scary. That, and I ran in similar circles to the ones I'd grown up in and I wanted to please people. So, I made a new profession of faith and kept up my acting like nothing was wrong.
It was in my mid-twenties that I finally admitted that I was truly agnostic. Just so we all know, an agnostic is: "a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience" (Dictionary. reference.com - agnostic). Now, I am not an English major so I didn't think in those terms but that is the jist of what I was dealing with and I finally stumbled onto the term "agnostic" and I felt a peace. No, not peace. I felt content that I could now define my frustrations, but no peace at all.
By this point I had gotten married and was involved at my local church. In case you aren't sure, that means that a crisis of faith is awkward and you feel like you can't tell anyone. What will they do? What will they think? How will they treat me? Will my "world" fall apart? I had no answers. So, I asked the only person I could think of and that was my pastor. Now, any skeptic out there is going to say, "Sure, ask the pastor. He's going to tell you what you want to hear and push you right back to where you were." Nice try, but wrong. In fact, my pastor looked at me and said, "Nate, I have no idea what you are going through. I don't understand your questions personally because I've never had the same doubts you have. But, we can talk, we can read a book and discuss it, whatever I can do to help, you let me know." That's right. He let me drive. (That's scary.)
So, I met with my pastor off and on for a few months. We read a book about faith. That book didn't help at all except to pin-point my problem. I didn't have an issue with faith. I understand that faith, on a simple and human level, is something we exercise daily. What I didn't have faith in was that the Bible was not just historical in parts, but in the whole. It wasn't a collection of historical documents sprinkled with spiritual hype to drug the masses. Believe me, this issue is settled in my life, but not in my reasoning.
I came to a point where I wanted to quit. I wanted to leave the church, leave my wife, leave it all behind and....what? Do what with myself? Go wallow in a hole and pretend the problem wasn't there? I couldn't do that. I wanted answers too much. I wanted to finish my "quest" to find either an answer or that there were no answers about God.
Sorry, this is long already and that wasn't my goal. I'm sure I'll put more pieces in as I go. However, to wrap it up, God has given me peace. I found a moment where I simply prayed, "God. I am going to trust that you exist and you are who the Bible says you are for one week and we'll go from there." Silly sounding, isn't it? Go ahead, admit it, I'm not offended. I'd also be lying if I told you that I have no doubts, no questions whatsoever. No, what I have is peace, more answers than I had before, more questions than I had before, and a belief in a God who loved me enough to send His son to die for me while I still hated Him. God, knowing that I was going to get hooked on addictions in my life, knowing that I would be a poor husband for years and a struggling father too, still loved me enough to send Christ to die for me (and you, by the way) and I can't let that go. Even if I don't understand it all, a never ending debt like that is too great for me to ignore. It is too great for me to be unthankful.
So, whether you have had your own struggles and found answers. Whether you have had your own struggles and are searching for answers. Whether you have never really had struggles because your "faith of a child" has followed you into adult-hood. Praise God that He loves you and He is pursuing you. I don't mean that everyone who reads this will become a Christian. I can't promise that everything will work out for you. I can't even promise you it's all going to work out for me. :o) What I can promise is that God pursues us because He loves us.
Happy Tuesday!
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