recently the Lord has been breaking down my heart; in a good way. a lot of my focus the past few weeks has been on theological issues within the church and trying to understand exactly what God means by each verse in His book.i am 114.65844675% sure that He's been chuckling at me, shaking His head sighing, "oh My child jackie..."
friends started asking difficult questions and estasblishing situations relating to the church and Christ that stopped me dead in my tracks. "that can't be right... but i don't know why..." and "good question, i'm gonna research it". i began emailing people like crazy, asking for their thoughts and/or if they knew of any books where i could get answers...
all i wanted to do was read theology... in my mind, that was going to help me have answers to any question ever presented to me. i started desiring to know as much information (and even more) as some of my friends and i wanted to be able to stand firm (and win) in complex debates concerning Christ. i wanted to be right. i wanted to know it all. i wanted to be the one people turn to with a question. basically... i wanted to be "the poo" (aka "the sh*t").
God has been good though. so good. by about the 3rd chapter of each book i began reading, He was not allowing any information to enter my head and make any sense. the words i read were quite similar to the teacher from charlie brown. "wah wah wah...wah wah wah..." this occurred with every book... i wanted to scream. and i did numerous times. usually it was when i realized there was no way i could understand what any of these theologians were talking about. after the 6th attempt at one of these books, i could finally see God getting a kick out of me... ever have one of those dreams where you show up to class in your underwear?... i haven't, but this was probably just as, or even more so embarrassing then that.
i had been caught craving knowledge and... wanting God's mind. yikes. that's embarrassing.
i'm so glad that i can't understand certain things; i know it would do more harm then good. when the Father wants us to understand something, He will allow us to. we cannot force knowledge. i'm also glad that He has created our minds to not be able to understand the bible to it's full. no way would we be able to handle the complete and utter Truth of every word and sentence written in His Word. that makes heaven so much more beautiful... all things will be understood. that hurts my brain to even imagine.
thankfully i'm not a theologian and nor has God called me to be one. i'm accepting and understanding that even though my friends may be able to read books where i can only comprehend what 3 of the words mean, i'm not inferior and nor am i dumb; that's often how i feel. when and if the Father wants to give me the knowledge and understanding, then i believe He will.
the second we find ourselves reading or debating with the goal of being right and having knowledge, that's when we must stop and redirect.
that's when God is shaking His head.
"oh child..."
5 comments:
How can you find relief in the fact that you don't know the answers and don't understand? That's hard for me to relate with, so I just wanted to know exactly how you got to this point.
Also, I agree with this!
"the second we find ourselves reading or debating with the goal of being right and having knowledge, that's when we must stop and redirect."
As I'm also discovering, arguing that you're more right than someone else (in regards to religious beliefs) is a discussion with no end. Everyone thinks that their beliefs are right, and everyone else thinks that you can't ever be right...I guess it's just something we all should realize.
sure, i wish i could know exact answers to everything, but i understand i can't. i understand that my mind (along with everyones) has not been created to understand everything. if we believe in a God who created this world and everything in it, then we have to know that His mind is way beyond ours. can we create a world? - no. so obviously Someone with a mind beyond anything we can imagine did, which also means that this same God was the One to create the bible. knowing that, i am aware that i will never fully be able to understand everything because i don't have His mind. yet just because i realize this, i don't stop thinking and wondering and researching.
it all comes down to faith. faith is not knowing everything. if we knew everything, we would have no faith. when i read my bible daily, i allow the words to enter into my mind and i focus on them throughout my day. - "what does this mean?" "what is the Father trying to teach me?" etc. i know the simplicity of what the bible says and thats what matters to me. we try so hard to make sense of everything and analyze everything... but we can't and won't. because again, our minds were not made to understand because He wants us to have faith.
God shows us things and reveals things to us when we ask Him. He says He will answer us. maybe it's not when or how we wanted Him to, but He will. if i read something in the bible that i don't get, i pray about it. and like God says He will, He gives me an answer. when i receive that answer, that's again where my faith comes in. i trust that what i heard or felt was from the Holy Spirit.
I couldn't possibly disagree with you any more Jak.
I do agree with the statement about God's mind being much larger in comparison to a human mind and thus will never be able to fully comprehend him, that’s just the down side of being a created being. But this does not negate that humans were created with minds, humans have potential to think with their minds, and it is integral part of the good life Jesus offers us, i.e. to Love God with our Hearts...Soul...Mind...Strength.
About the whole "if we knew everything, we would have no faith". Faith is part of a means to an end; it's something we have to settle with. As our knowledge of God increases, our faith (as you have defined it) necessarily decreases as your comment implies. The way you have defined faith would be lack of knowledge or sub-acceptable intellectual weight. But, in heaven our knowledge of God will be filled to whatever human capacity God originally intended human beings to have prior to the fall, faith will no longer exist. Jesus list three things, faith hope and love, the greatest is love. This is because faith and hope will be irrelevant after heavenly sanctification, love is the only one that will remain, faith being irrelevant because full knowledge will be attained, and hope will be irrelevant because it wont be possible to hope for anymore knowledge. Paul defines a mature Christ follower as one whose love of Christ is filled with more and more knowledge and depth of insight (Phil 1:9) not lack of knowledge or the faith that you have described.
So what does that mean? Faith is not something that we should necessarily be proud of rather we should seek knowledge of God and settle for faith in the area's were greater answers cannot be found, yet, or we don't have the time or energy at that moment for intellectual purists. It's better for a woman who is having a baby to practically learn about motherhood and prepare for her child then to exegetically study the book of Romans. It is better for a Father to work long hours if it is the only way he can feed his family then to become a monk and have his family starve. But sometime in their life they ought to attempt it. Our minds were meant to understand God, he does want us to understand him as fully as our minds are able and eventually they will be to their full capacity. Faith is what we are stuck with for now.
I think a better statement than "if we knew everything, we would have no faith" would be to pursue God in knowledge and at times when confusion about God's character or our human existence, in that moment of despair and mental anguish, the moment that you almost don't believe God, then rely on faith. Faith fills the gaps that knowledge leaves out. But faith should never be taken as an end. It is a means, an idleness that God desires knowledge to fill.
Feel free to disagree but I don’t follow a God who looks at ignorance as a virtue.
Chunk
chunk - i understand and agree with what you're saying, but i think you misunderstood the whole point of my post...
these were my main points that i was trying to get at:
1.) my mind cannot understand certain theological things and thats okay
2.) my friends often make me feel stupid because they can grasp something while i cannot
3.) the second i start craving knowledge just for the fact of knowing things to prove people wrong, i need to badck up
thats all i was really trying to get at.
seeking knowledge for other people can be dificult and a daunting taks. Like when people ask me questions that I dont know the answer to, I have to personalize the questions and figure out if I have an issue with the question, does my lack of knowledge effect my view of God, and in those doubting moments that it incourages me to find the answer because the implications of the question is trying to deny a truth i hold about God. But their is nothing more fustrating then being in a conversation with someone who is only trying to prove you wrong. Truth as a goal is removed and pride is inserted instead.
blogging is kind of fun. good day jak.
chunk
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