What's the Point?

I used to think that church on Sunday sometimes was uneventful at best.  The people are great, but the entire congregation is stuck in a confederation that is 50 or 60 years old and no longer fits their current demographics, and they have inherited a liturgy that is sacrosanct and not easy to change.  So there is a lot of up and downs in the pews, and 200 year old songs stuck here and there, and forms that can never be wavered from.  It makes one think "What would happen if the Holy Spirit really did show up as everyone prays and blew wherever He chose to do so?"  But there is the benefit of reflection, both inward and Godward, and I get my best questions in the pews, rarely answers, just many, many questions.  And I find that the closer I get to asking the right questions, the closer I feel I am getting to laying hold of who God is, who I am because of Him, and what my life is intended to amount to.

So last week's questions included this one.  What is a better starting point for trying to live the Christian life, absolute truth or sincere doubt?  Anything needs a foundation to build on and I have always been told that the truth of God's word was the very best foundation for my life.  And because it was my foundation I defended it to any length necessary, because if the foundation starts to get shaky, so does what is built on it.  But I found, as I have aged and journeyed, that when people exhort you to build your life on the solid rock of God's word they usually have an implied version of interpreting God's word that they are foisting wholesale on you.  And that is when good solid granite gets mixed in with cheap brick to fill in those inconvenient areas, and that leads to a foundation with gaps, weak spots, places where water tends to seep in.  So I ask the question again, what is a better starting point?  Should we cling to our version of absolute truth and defend it to the death, often against common sense or the witness of life itself?  Or should we have the decency and honesty to say, "I don't know" and come to God with the prayer of the honest man who said "Lord, I believe, but would you help my me where I cannot believe"?  My life has tended to follow the latter path.  By now I should have amassed a wondrous amount of wisdom but instead I have a notebook of questions that one by one I wrestle with.  Some I bring to resolution, others I set aside for a time.  The sad fact is that is is far easier to learn something right the first time then to have to unlearn something that habit and time have reinforced.  Renovations, rebuilding, correcting structural defects are always more expensive in terms of time, resources, and energy.  But I've stayed the course this far and I don't intend to abandon the journey.  Rather fixing my eyes on Jesus, I press forward.  He is the one that started what faith I have inside me and He is the only one that can bring it to any fulfillment.