Thursday, 26 July 2007

Live the Questions

Ok, let me be frank (or maybe billy!)...right now I am at a place where I am really questioning this whole life thing. When I say life, I am actually talking about what Jesus gave me (in all its fullness). Don't get me wrong, I am not questioning in a sense of is it worth it (cos it is!), but recently I have found myself shifted into a place where I have more questions than answers! Is this a good thing? Well, I think it is. Some of the questions I have felt moved to ask could damage your faith, but I am holding up to it fairly well. Thats not to say I have better faith than most (far from it), but for some reason all this questioning seems...holy. I can't explain it! Most of our christian indoctrination (oops did I say that-slip of the tongue!) would seem to say that too many questions are bad, but I somehow seem to be able to connect with God more when I am asking Him questions. I suppose my reasoning on it is that the guy made the flipping universe; I reckon He can handle a few questions about 'Life, the Universe and Everything'.

I was at a gathering of some people the other week, and a lot of stuff was said (some of it not particularly relevant to me), but one thing that a guy said was all about questions. And he said to 'Live the Questions'! What does this mean exactly? Well I'm not too sure, but I think ours is an angry generation; too much bad stuff happens in the world and our only response is that 'God's ways are higher than ours'! Surely we can come up with better answers! Maybe not, but I'm still gonna keep asking God the hard questions. I reckon He can take it.

Oh, and if you want to know what some of the questions are, come and talk to me and we can have a discussion. I wont, for obvious reasons (i.e. fundamentals whose world might explode at the thought of a Christian asking God questions), repeat them here.

Keep the Faith...Thanks for listening

3 comments:

leanne savage said...

Ive been thinking about the whole questioning thing too, i love that i have christian friends who are willing to question stuff. I guess Jesus answered people using questions, being a good teacher, he liked to make people think for themselves, i think i just need to go deeper with my questions...sometimes im tooo lazy to find answers

Anonymous said...

Have you read " The Complex Christ" (Kester Brewin)? His whole thesis isn't necessarily relevant, but he tracks the process of living questions and holding different realities together. You might enjoy(?).

I particularly like his use of Fowler's 6 stages of faith. He talks about the stage you get to where "'in its richness, ambiguity, and multidimensionality, truth must be approached from at least two or more angles of vision simultaneously' and where 'faith... gives rise to a second naivete [and] readiness for participation'".

Failing that, you might just jump into some Thomas Merton? The mystics are seriously helpful on this front...

Molar said...

Hey Steve, thanks for the recommendations. I will check them out. I can always rely on you to throw a little something extra into the melting pot, and it's good!

And Leanne keep pushing! Like you say, Jesus taught by asking questions-there is something in that!!!