So I've been listening to a ton of Rend Collective this week. A TON. While this is my natural state, this week has been particularly exciting because I've been listening to (and playing) NEW Rend Collective from their NEW album I posted about a couple days ago. Also, I got my hands on a banjo. Anyway, that's what I've been up to...
On Thursday I was asked to discuss what doubts/reservations/questions I had regarding the faith, and the discussion reminded me of the way I had decided to approach such doubts some time in the past. I thought I'd blog about it.
See, I had doubts and questions all the time before I was (really) a Christian, so many that at one time I concluded that God didn't exist. This post isn't about my testimony, though (more on that later), allow a long story to be short and know that, eventually, I did meet Him. Sooner or later I was overwhelmed by the reality of God, that everything I had sung about his immense power, majesty, and love were all more-than-completely true. Did the doubts and questions go away? Well, actually, yes... but it wasn't magical. Here's how I approach them.
Whenever I come up against something I don't understand, I simply acknowledge the fact. I tell myself (and God) that I may never understand it, but I believe in a God who is big enough to handle it.
For example: I wonder about God having no beginning and no end. Is it possible for my mind, having a clear beginning and only moving in one temporal direction, to wrap itself around such a concept? No! I wonder about how God can be omnipresent, at all places at all times. Can my mind, having always occupied one moment and one space, wrap itself around omnipresence? No! I wonder about the trinity- "3 in person, 1 in essence," yeah, yeah, seriously, how does that WORK? Can my mind, perpetually one in person and one in essence, wrap itself around a triune God? No!
The good news is, essentially, I don't have to. I don't really have to spend my time sitting around working out exactly what being eternally present or omnipresent means- why would I? God knows what I can handle, and He's given me that much.
Here's the rub: there are things about the universe that we will never be able to understand. God's ways are higher than our ways; it's actually a little silly to strive to understand every facet of his existence- such a feat is clearly impossible for us. More often than not, when I think about something mind-boggling, I just throw it up to God and say "I'll take Your word for it- You know better than I do!"
Does this mean I don't meditate on these sort of things or that I avoid any sort of study by chalking everything up to "in-understandable God things"? I just think there are some, and we are better off taking God's word for it than trying to figure out exactly what it means.
That being said, one of my favorite pastimes is to sit back and marvel at some facet of God or his universe that I'll never understand. I enjoy being reminded of how small and insignificant I am when compared to the God who invented time [He INVENTED time. Think about that. Time wasn't a thing, then God was like, "Hm, it'd be cool if I made a universe that has time," and there was time. WHAT!? What an awesome God!]- then, you tell me that that God DIED for me? That's crazy! That's what knowing God is all about. We can use the things we don't understand as something to marvel at and worship Him for, rather than something to breed doubt and insecurity with.
Are we ever (on this earth) going to really, fully wrap our minds around time, eternity, or the vastness of the universe? No. But we follow a God who came up with it all in his master plan, a plan so great and glorious our heads would probably explode if it was laid out for us. We worship Him for that- we follow the God who made time, eternity, and the farthest and brightest galaxies we've ever heard of. Our wildest dreams don't come close to Him.
God's ways our higher than our ways not because he is less compassionate than we are but because he is more compassionate than we can ever imagine
-Rachel Held Evans
P.S. if you (Christian or not) do have any deep, gnawing, unsettling questions, ones you keep coming back to time after time, ask someone. Seriously. Don't behave like me and keep a stash of inconsistencies piled in the back of your mind. After all, there's probably someone around you with the wisdom necessary to set your mind at ease, so why not give it a shot?
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