The What or the Way?
I like certainty. I like to know the way things are and how they got to be that way, cause and effect. I like to know why. Right and wrong. Good and bad. These things serve as a sort of compass, a means for maintaining bearings in a topsy turvy world.
Yet I am becoming increasingly convinced that the process of learning and growth is more important than the possession of any set of concrete facts. I have been noticing that the God portrayed in the Bible has never really given people certainty. For example, when Job and Habbakuk asked the big why questions, God responded by reminding them that He was in control and that they should trust Him. And Jesus didn’t really talk much about the whats and whys either, according to the gospel record. Although he did talk a lot about loving your neighbor, following Him, and being connected to Him as branches are to a vine.
This whole business of following, and connection to God and others, seems risky and uncertain in some ways. Following means I don’t know where I’ll end up. Connection means that I can’t survive alone.
But I think there are some good things about this too. For one thing, my faith will never be stale. When it is about a journey and relationships, there are always new experiences, discoveries, and vistas that help me to get new and deeper perspectives. In relinquishing my desire for a set of whats, I am liberated to believe in a God who is too big to be completely defined.
So I am trying to follow the way of Christ, and think differently about what it really means to be a Christian.
