Faith and Questions...

The chats I’ve had with some friends recently have been interesting.  Two are struggling with faith.  They are struggling with the things they grew up knowing.  I think they are struggling for different reasons, and their approaches to it are different, but they are both struggling.  

The first has shared with me that as a child/youth she felt lied to.  She doesn’t believe pastors and other leaders actually believed or meant the things they told her.  The view on alcohol or sex perhaps wasn’t meant to be taken as strictly as she assumed it was.  When her mind started to spin and she lost faith in leaders she began to question God.  As she did, she looked for answers.  She looked in good places.  She found none that satisfied and eventually stopped looking all together.  Even worse, some of the guides not only didn’t give answers that helped – the screwed her up more.  Now she longs for answers, but lacks the desire or motivation to search for them.  She has given up on churches and dreams and love and faith.  Yet she doesn’t really want to give up on any of them.  

The other friend is in a different place.  I think she found sin she enjoyed before she found doubt.  She found a boy who she liked but she knew wasn’t a wise choice.  She wasn’t really interested in a wise choice though, so she pursued it anyway.  A few times it has crashed yet resurrected itself.  She hates the relationship but likes feeling loved and being able to love.  She likes the physical.  She likes the idea of it being around until she at least figures out herself and her own beliefs again.  She doesn’t see that it is likely what keeps her guessing.  She is searching for answers.  Or maybe she just thinks she is.  In actuality she is probably more concerned with finding justification for her sin than answers.  She is working harder to disprove her faith than to remember it as real and alive.  She wants to box God in.  She wants God to be simple and understandable…possibly so she can figure out how to hide the sin from him.  She is like Adam and Eve hiding in the garden from the God that sees everything they do no matter where they hide.  She wants to love God; she is just tired of it being so damn hard.    

I never know where to go with these types of chats.  I feel we have a responsibility to help one another brave the path of faith.  Yet I believe the doubts and the questions contain great value.  How do I stop giving answers but encourage they continue asking good questions?  How do I walk beside them as they search?  How do I help others question in healthy manners but not come to dangerous places as perhaps both of these have?  I do I help decipher good questions from not so great ones?

I led a youth weekend two weeks ago.  I spent a lot of time with senior guys in high school.  We had a lot of fun.  We shot it pretty straight.  We talked about life and love and God.  We talked about how we try to mix them all together.  The focus was on making Christ Lord.  Not sure I’ve ever figured out how to do that.  I’m trying to learn.  But the more I look the more I believe it is less about quiet times and going to church and doing this and not doing that.  It seems to be more concerned with people than tasks.  It seems to be more concerned with love than perfection.  

I miss ministry.  I miss community.  I love to be able to have chats like these with friends.  I love to walk with others as we journey faith.  The Father is leading me back towards church ministry.  I hope as he does so he continues helping me learn how to serve better, how to love better, how to live out holiness better.  I hope he makes of me the man he has called me to be.  I hope I can help him more than be a hindrance to the project.