Two weekends ago I had to go to one more of my classes for the Georgia School of Ministry. Being completely honest, it was a hard weekend for me. I hadn't really been in the mood to read our text book on Romans or to complete my homework. I didn't want to read over the study guide and get ready for my exam either. Life was very busy for me that week and I just wasn't interested in my class. I got there on Friday night, and honestly right off the bat I determined it would be a hard class. Why you ask? Because our teacher asked us to answer a very controversial question, and he was well, in your face about it as we gave him our answers. (No you don't need to know what the question was.)
One thing you do have to know about me however, is that I do not debate, EVER! I don't watch political debates on TV, and I dislike arguing over things. In other words as my teacher for the evening so eloquently put it..."So for you Gina things are black and white right? No gray areas?". And I guess I would have to answer, yes! Or maybe I could tweak what he said and say this, when it comes to my beliefs it's pretty much black and white, with a few gray stripes. (Which oddly enough is sort of like my daughter's dance costume this season...sorry random thought there.) Getting back on track here. To find myself in a class where the teacher asked hard questions that just ached for a debate came as quite a challenge to me.
My blog is not about the questions asked that weekend, or how I handled them, instead it's about the benefits of hard questions. There are times when we all need to think about how we would answer the hard questions in life. Questions like, "How can a loving God allow natural disasters to happen? He could have prevented it." Yes, I think we all pretty much agree that HE is God and He can stop certain things from happening. Why doesn't He? To be honest I don't have an answer. But I do know this, that even in the midst of a horrific disaster He is there for those who call out to Him. Life isn't easy. Bad things do happen to good people. I should know.
I believed for a long time that God loved me like crazy...and I still do. But in my naivete I believed that His love for me meant He would never allow bad things to happen to me. Then my first love, my husband I planned on spending the rest of my life with died from cancer. I struggled with anger, discouragement and all of the other feelings one has after a loss. Until in the middle of the night several months after Rob died, there in my lonely apartment trying hard to fall asleep once again, I heard the Spirit of the Lord say to me, "Get up and dance before me Gina." I was like yeah right...but I knew in my heart I had to do this. So I did. (I won't tell you the song...well because it was several actually and because...well that's for another blog, after May 11th).
It probably wasn't pretty that evening, my dance, but it did something special in my heart. It started a healing process in my life, a process that reminded me once again just how much He loves me. He loves me enough to share my grief. In those quiet evenings when I listened to His voice and either danced, or worshipped Him, He spoke to me. Through the music, through His word, through my obedience.
Hard questions. We all face them, in our own lives and from others. We need to be challenged with them sometimes, so we can come up with answers better than, Because!
Jesus asked hard questions of his followers. He asked one day, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"...and just a few minutes later He asked, "But what about you? Who do you say that I am?". Later in His journey to the cross at the garden of Gethsemane He said "if it is possible may this cup be taken from me." He didn't really say it like a question, but I have to pause for just one moment and wonder if that isn't what He meant that evening. Here He is in a garden, surrounded by those who say they love Him and will follow Him and they can't even stay awake while He agonizes over what He knows is coming. He has to be thinking and wondering, isn't there another way? Oh He is willing to go the distance, I mean He says, Not my will but yours. And there in that simple statement is the answer I so often look for.
I looked for it as I watched Rob die. I looked for it after my first miscarriage. My second miscarriage. And my third. I don't know all that God will allow to come into my life, but I do know that His will be done, and that the path He has put me on may be full of twists and turns, bumps and falls, but He...He walks right beside me! Holding me up...filling me with joy and loving me as I journey on to my final destination. And the truth is I want others to join me on this journey. So classes, like the one I just took, that challenge you to search for answers to tough questions are exactly what we in the "church world" need. That weekend as hard questions were being asked I was being challenged to think like the world does, not like the church. We aren't going to reach the world with pert Christian answers. We need to be able to come up with answers that will make them think, make them realize that we have a faith worth looking into. A faith that is more than rules and regulations. A faith that is all about relationship.
In the end I can honestly say that what I thought was going to be the worse class, ended up being the best! No, I still won't become part of a debate team or watch any sort of political debate on TV, but I will study harder to show myself approved, so that one day, when a hard question is asked of me I will be able to honestly answer it, and pray that God will use my words to touch someone's life.
No comments:
Post a Comment