The Importance of Questioning

I am not often prone to doubt. My default position seems to be one of confident optimism. It wasn’t always that way but it has been now for some time. My wife calls me a dreamer, and she is right. I have big ideas and a bold confidence that those ideas can become a reality. Sometimes the dreaming fails to consider the most obvious of realities, and that is a failing of mine, though I hope Joy finds it charming....

When it comes to God, to Jesus, to faith and to this life, the dreaming becomes vision, and the bold confidence finds its foundation in the word of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ. I have learned not to doubt, because God has never let me down, never not kept a promise. At times I have needed some correction and instruction as to what God is up to and what He has in fact promised, which may stand in sharp contrast to what I think and want Him to have promised. If I trust Him for salvation, I can and should trust Him in all things. And so, for the most part, I do, which means that I am not often prone to doubt.

I do question, however. I question a lot. I want to understand, I want to make things my own. And I want to challenge the traditional understanding and application of all things biblical and ecclesiological, not because I think they are wrong or misguided, nor because I distrust tradition, but because I want to connect the practices of tradition, and the doctrine and interpretation of tradition with its biblical source. And so I am open to change to something new and to returning to a much older tradition. I am not afraid of being wrong, critiqued or usurped (though I do not enjoy it overly much either). This process, the questioning process, helps me erase any possibility of doubt. It helps build my faith. Most importantly it is a significant part of the process of transformation and renewal.
God has challenged me to be open to dialogue. As I question I must free myself to be questioned in return. And as I am questioned by God through His word and His Spirit, I grow in confidence and maturity. As I grow in confidence and maturity my questioning becomes more insightful. It is an upward spiral that is only blocked by my own unwillingness to receive God’s questioning. Questioning reveals my limitations and weaknesses, and questioning allows God to extend the boundaries of my limits and become strength in my weaknesses. Questioning is at the heart of renewal and transformation. A willingness to ask questions, to accept answers, and to be questioned in return leads ever deeper into the heart of God, where I can become more of who God created me to be.

A Time For Renewal

Talk about being renewed! The time for a new start has come, and the gracious gift of renewal has been given once again. God’s promise, inherent in the gospel, is a promise of continued recreation – of new life in the midst of a fallen life, of new hope in the midst of a fallen world. In a word: renewal.

My present renewal has been a work in progress, as it is for most people. It has emerged along a journey from darkness to light. It was not too long ago, though it seems like a lifetime now, that I experienced what has to be the deepest hurt of my life. It was not mine alone but a hurt that included my family as well. I was overwhelmed, shocked, broken. I found myself isolated, even from those closest to me. It was a profound and startling experience. I think it is honest to say that my faith in God was not shaken, but my understanding certainly was, at least for a time.

In that time of uncertainty, renewal started to come. The first real turning point for me was in submitting to the wisdom of a wise friend who helped me to admit that what had been done to me and my family was in fact sin. We had been sinned against. That seems so simple, but it was a hard thing for me to do, to declare that the actions of people I trusted were sinful. It was not easily done, but I was compelled by the gospel to do just that.

You see, the declaration of sin as sin is essential to the gospel. It was not so that I could sit in judgment, to condemn those who had done me wrong. It was so that I could be reminded of the grace of God in Jesus Christ given to me, a miserable sinner, that I might find forgiveness and be renewed. In the same way, by declaring sin to be sin, I could offer forgiveness. It was an act of grace, to the offender to be sure, but most of all to myself. There was no other way for me to be free and that is what I am now, by the grace of God I am free – He is bringing my renewal.

And so I start again. With new life comes new hope and a stronger faith in the person of God, the ways of God and the promises of God, though my understanding seems no greater than before. I will go forward, trusting that God is making me more the man that He created me to be as He works His renewal in me. And as He renews He calls me to be an agent of renewal – one who is transformed by His grace and by His Spirit that through me He might transform the world for His glory, by His Spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ the Reigning One. Amen.

A Fresh Start

God is in control. I believe that to be true in all circumstances, even when I don't understand what He is doing, especially when I'm not even sure I can see His hand at work. But when I can see His hand, and it is so very clear, holding me, comforting me, leading me, loving me, renewing me... I don;t just believe it to be true, I rejoice in it, I praise Him and I worship Him, I delight in His grace and His goodness - I am transformed.

And that is what I want this blog to be about. As God has given me renewal, as He has transformed me from what I was to what I am and as He transforms me from what I am to what He created me to be, my prayer is that He will use me to see others transformed, to see the world transformed for His glory, by His Spirit, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is a renewed life, a transformed life, and a life that renews, a life that transforms, because Jesus Christ is at the center.

So here, by the grace of God, is my fresh start.