Questions?

Ann Spivack, in Reader’s Digest, tells this personal story: While our friends from India traveled around California on business, they left their 11 year-old daughter with us. Curious about my going to church one Sunday morning, she decided to come along. When we returned home, my husband asked her what she thought of the service.

"I don't understand why the West Coast isn't included too," she replied. When we inquired what she meant, she added, "You know, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast."

And so we, as adults, try to understand what the child from India could not comprehend namely the Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Ghost – Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer – Three persons in one and yet not three gods … Trinity, an explanation for the unexplainable God. Attempts usually included fail attempts that share about the various “functions” of the Universal Power Source called God. The end result in all of our attempts is simply to reduce God to our size – a deity that we can carry around in our pocket as a personal lucky charm, so to speak.

There are some questions that haunt every pastor that has stood in the pulpit. Questions such as, “What is the meaning of the Book of Revelation?” “Just what is the unpardonable sin?” “If God is good then why does he permit evil?” “Why are some people healed after prayer and others are not?” and “Can you explain the Trinity?” They are tough questions for which there are not any simple answers … and the assumption is that pastors are not suppose to struggle with these issues, but rather have all the answers.

Well, we don’t … or at least I don’t. These are the very questions which confronts you, confronts me. The larger assumption, which was the prevailing mind-set when I was in seminary, was … never, ever bring your struggles and doubts to the pulpit. Thank goodness that in many areas of the country that is beginning to change. Pastors are just fellow strugglers on the journey of faith. “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.”

Or, as an old Scottish Presbyterian preacher once shared his definition of faith in an acrostic: F – forsaking; A – all; I – I; T – trust; H – Him … Faith is in truth forsaking all and trusting in God … not out of knowledge, but out of not knowing. Ask a young child why he or she is willing to jump off a high ledge into his/her daddy’s arms they would not be able to explain it other than, “Because his my dad!” End of story … it doesn’t need an explanation because no explanation will work. Just because … period.

Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! The longer I live the more questions and few answers I have. Maybe it really does boil down to simply having faith – faith is the ability to ask questions in the face of unanswerable questions.

Quote for today: A friend once asked Isidor I. Rabi, a Nobel prize winner in science, how he became a scientist. Rabi replied that every day after school his mother would talk to him about his school day. She wasn't so much interested in what he had learned that day, but she always inquired, "Did you ask a good question today?" "Asking good questions," Rabi said, "made me become a scientist." Source Unknown