as the sand on the seashore ..

some friends are discussing a passage of scripture that lends itself to various interpretations ..
some are worried about the possibilities
the passage speaks of serious issues
more poignantly, some are worried about the idea of even discussing it altogether .. as in, why not just leave it be? Or, why throw this out there for the immature christians?? they could be misled, even to the point of attacking their faith!

well .. what of it?

I remembered one time I recommended a book to a friend on a controversial topic; the response was “will it challengge my faith?”, or similar; the idea being, if it causes me to doubt, then I'd better not read it ..

well .. what of it?

from my perspective, faith is not the absence of doubt.
in fact, faith is most evident when doubt is present, for it says “even though i'm not sure about this, I trust God anyway.” it's moving ahead in the face of my doubts.

question: why didn't God simply lay it all out in propositional format; this is the way it is, do this/don't do that; believe this, not that .. ? God certainly could have, no?

what if the bible was a chart, a map, a plan, a dogmatic statement of the way things are?
this is what God expects in this circumstance/that life/those conditions/this country/that region/this time in history, and you either follow suit or ..

if that was the case, then where does engagement come in? And christianity is all about engagement, all about relating; relating to the God that is, relating to this Earth in which we live, relating to family and schoolmates and work-associates and church. Absolutely.

and .. what about faith
the more I read scripture the more I see the critical centrality of faith (romans, hebrews, Jesus)
if everything were laid out where would be the need for that critical faith?

the mere fact that this discussion is in play on that passage of scripture spells 'engagement'; people are talking, discussing various thoughts, arguing positions. and that, my friend is a good thing. when the church is talking and communicating and engaging, there is life. and that's a good thing. Life.

more significantly, it engages God.
when we have doubts and we go to God, God is pleasantly engaged. God loves that. Absolutely.
don't you love it when your children talk to you, ask you stuff, question this or that? we should. it's a promising sign of relating; we see their quizzical mentality, their wanting to understand, and perhaps most encouraging, their wanting to talk to us about it. relating is everything, and the failure to understand that is the root of many familial issues, as well as both relations among church and our relationship to God.

it signifies maturing.
maturity is what it's all about with God.
trust, even in the doubt, pursue it, engage God, Scripture and church, and mature in the process.
grow.
stretch.

another aspect of this is the at-odds nature of life. life butts heads. life is plus as well as minus.
there's good and there's bad. there are friends and enemies, there's birth and death, strength and weakness, plenty and poverty.
ours is to accept that and to embrace it ..
embrace. we don't see God in the face of our enemy if we don't..
it boils down to seeing God there, in the enemy's eyes .. refer to Jesus for more on that.

so, my mind on it is that I accept the bad with the good, and walk on looking to spread the good I have, maybe stymie the bad a bit here and there.
if I shun the bad, I fail in that.
if I turn my back on the evil, walk on the other side of the street, I fail.
if I see evil and refuse to engage, I fail.
when doubt slaps me in the face, and I bite down hard and reject doubt, I fail.
mine is to turn the other cheek.
mine is to face the doubt and trust God in the face of doubt, to see the hurt, the failure, the fatal illness, the drunkenness and mental challenges and addiction, the atheism and anti-God and hatred and war and prejudice and .. bring some modicum of Godness to the situation, the life.
if I can step into the dark and bring some light with me, even flickering candlelight, I walk Jesus into that darkness.

thing is, this life is a conundrum, an at-odds, a puzzle, a maze, a big huge question mark.
accept it, and walk it, looking to Jesus, the Forerunnner and Perfector of our faith..
that is faith; the kind of faith God is looking for.
a faith that engages and persists and endures, right in the face of doubt and mystery and attack and in-your-face hatred and death.
like Abraham, the father of faith, who trusted God even though he couldn't see, didn't know where, couldn't fathom 'as the sand on the seashore' .. just like that.
trust and persevere in the face of opposition and doubt and naysayers .. because this is God we're talking about ..
and God is so into faith .. as it is said, 'without faith it's impossible to please God' ..

if we knew everything and understood everything ..
we would be God ..

thank God for faith in the midst of a dark and broken world where hope and faith and love persist in the  trenches of tragedy heartache and suffering

accept the challenge
engage
persist
pursue
persevere

God is pleased with such a life as this