Big questions and big thoughts seemed frightful in a way that could knock me right off whatever tentative ground I was trying to stand on. It was as though if I didn't find answers to big, ominous things like predestination or the complicated balance between His love and His justice, faith was merely a freestanding title, not a character trait and certainly not something that has been grown out of loving trust or devine revelation by His Spirit.
Now, let me say this: faith does not mean ignorance. Big thoughts and big questions don't not scare me anymore because I have written them off and chosen not to think about them. I know the depth, I know the draw, and I know the weightiness of all that has consistently been roadblocks and dead ends for men and women of faith. I think long and deeply about things like dispensationalism, creationism, calvinism, free will and so on and so forth. I am not saying that those things aren't important or worthy of great contemplation, I just can't get past the grace by which I have been saved. What I mean is, that "twas grace that taught my heart to fear And grace my fear relieved!" See, it's not big thoughts and big questions that scare me, it is facing those big thoughts and big questions without knowing Jesus and his sweet and tender love for me.
I am in a theology class that my church is teaching this fall and there are times when what I learn causes my brain to want to question things I know in my heart. But let me tell you, it is not because I am smarter or understand God more (for His thoughts will always be higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9)) that these "big thoughts" (I hope you have experienced what type of big thoughts and questions I am referring to. If not, this probably doesn't make much sense) don't scare me anymore. It is because I know God and I have gotten to know His character through relationship with Jesus. I have felt His tenderness, I have endured the gut wrenching realizations of the ugliness of my sin, I have experienced the depths of my desperation for His presence. I am becoming one with His Spirit and by doing so, I can ask questions and have theological "discussions" without my faith wavering or my heart trembling.
One thing that I have learned by returning home this semester is that moving somewhere or going somewhere or leaving somewhere doesn't "fix the problem." Sure, being somewhere else might make things easier or more or less enjoyable, but that is mere frosting on the deep transformation that the Lord wants to do on the crumbling cake (or should I say feces) of my heart.
It is a great and necessary thing to wrestle through big things. God works in big ways when His children ask him big questions (I mean, He is a BIG God and gives BIG answers). It is just scary to face such big things when, on our own, our faith is so weak, so fragile. It is even scarier when our pride causes us to believe that our logic is higher than He and that our inability to find answers is due to God's inability to answer them.
Will I ever understand grace? I sure hope not. But I do know that knowing Jesus and falling in love with him is the greatest of all romances and causes my heart and my mind to be totally transformed by recognizing His sovereignty over all things and the patient love He demonstrates to His children.
We are written on the palms of His hands, Isaiah tells us. But listen to this beautiful realization: our names are chiseled there by the nails hammered into Jesus' hands on the cross! We are written there by his blood! We are never far from His thoughts, but the thought of Him often causes our sinful flesh to turn away. If the thought of God is too much to understand, if it is too frightening, too ominous, get to know Jesus. His love and compassion will overwhelm your big thoughts and big questions. Sometimes with answers and sometimes with the comfort (yes, the comfort!) of not knowing.
You see, the harder you lean on Jesus, the stronger you find him to be.
