Questions

I've struggled over the past few months with aspects of God's character, specifically His goodness. I've wrestled to understand what exactly it means that God is good and what that means for our lives. What can we expect from God? What can we pray for? I have recently begun to feel that I'm getting some answers to my questions. During this time several books landed in my lap through no real choice of mine (they were not on my wishlist) that in one way or another addressed these questions. Coincidence? Not likely.

One author's words seemed to jump off the page at me, and while not directly answering my questions, spoke to the topic of "questioning" itself. To paraphrase/quote:

"Give up excessive questioning and reasoning. We are not going to figure God out completely. Our job is not to understand God, but to trust and obey Him. Trust always requires unanswered questions."

This got me thinking. Was I guilty of excessive questioning and reasoning?? Probably. I was trying to understand God completely, forgetting the limits of my finite mind. I wanted a detailed rationale for His actions. I'm the kind of person that likes to understand things. I want to know that I "get" it, especially when it comes to matters involving God. This is not a totally bad thing but something that must be kept in check because knowing about God can easily get in the way of knowing God. And if I was forced to choose, I would want the relationship rather than the tidy theological treatises.

That being said, I don't think it's wrong to seek answers, afterall, we are told in the Bible that the Spirit will lead us into all truth. But there is a point at which our questioning becomes excessive. We then refuse to act on what we know because of what we don't know. This seems to be the point that some people walk away from the faith unfortunately. They decide they simply cannot live with the tension of trusting a God they don't fully understand. (But that's another post!!)

So, I guess I'm learning (slowly) that I have to make peace with the reality that some questions will not be completely answered this side of heaven. They may not even be answered on the other side of heaven! My decision becomes painfully simple at that point: either I'm going to choose to trust God OR I'm not.

I hope this post doesn't seem pessimistic because as I said earlier I do feel like I'm getting some answers but I'm also learning to let go of my demand to know everything before moving forward.