The seeds of my faith in God were not planted within a church or
by a caring friend. They were planted by my parents. My father is a great man…
it is only now that I can look back and begin to catch a glimpse of the legacy
he is building for each of his daughters. Though we rarely attended churches,
it was not unusual for us to discuss his (and later our) faith. In some of my
favorite memories my mother would find my father and I pouring over some often
read passage of Scripture while he tried to help me understand with something
more than a child’s eyes. My father rarely answered any questions without
pulling out a Bible and showing me the answers in black and white. He never
fielded a question and never told me I wouldn’t understand. Likewise, he never
tried to hide ignorance if he didn’t have an answer.
I loved these talks- and sometimes debates- with my father. I
still do, though they are rarer now. They didn’t always clarify the particular
point I was asking about but they always left me wanting to find more for
myself, to KNOW. You see, my father’s greatest gift – his legacy – to me was
that he taught me to think.
Knowing how to think is a fine thing but it was my mother who
quietly directed this skill, this fascination with philosophies and cultures
and histories. Moms are funny like that, at least mine was. She never tried to
enter the dizzying displays of intellect that my father seemed to stir up. She
always waited until the quiet moments – she was the center of the home. The eye
of the storm in times of crisis and it was her that taught all of us the value
of honesty. My mother never let me hide behind my intellect, she always forced
me to look into the mirror and see what was broken, what needed fixed before I
could move forward. Frankly, she scared the bejeezers out of me. It was like
she could read my mind. She can still do it, too.
I accepted Jesus into my heart at a very young age, about 7 or so,
and grew up open to the teachings I heard. The older I got, though, the more
doubt began to take hold. By the time I was in high school, I vacillated
between being completely on fire for Christ and wondering if there was a
God out there. I remember wondering if, in two thousand years from now,
people wouldn’t read about me and others like me in their history books
and laugh at the foolishness of ‘Christianity’, much as the modern free
countries now view the Aztecs’ notion of human sacrifice and the other ancient
cultures that seem so backwards to us.
I felt a tremendous amount of guilt for even entertaining the idea
that we, as the Church, had it all wrong. What if we already missed the boat?
What if I wasn’t really forgiven? What if ‘it didn’t take’? What if Jesus was
some long-haired, pot-smoking charmer with lots of groupies and not the Son of
God? Now, looking back, I know that these are not original questions, nor were
they especially deep. They are profound only because they are, in a sense, a
rite of passage for every person who ever encounters the Gospel that Jesus
surrendered his divinity for a mortal life of servitude and frustration and
death all to give us a chance to spend eternity with our Creator God instead of
separated from him. I also realize that I was fortunate enough to have a father
who invited questions like this.
I remember when I finally admitted to my father how worried
I was that we would be mocked by future generations. How did we know we were
right? I don’t recall exactly when this conversation took place, nor do I
recall that my dad had all the answers. I just remember his response: “You
can’t know that, Jessica.” I was disappointed by this and yet, at the same
time, I was oddly comforted by the idea that no one else knew, either.
This put me instantly in the company of great thinkers throughout the ages. I
wasn’t alone, nor was I stupid or faithless for thinking these questions. In
fact, I had unwittingly become a Truth Seeker.
When you seek Truth, do you know what happens? He finds you. No
matter what path you tread, if you are earnestly seeking Truth, He will find
you in the end.
It is an ongoing process, I don’t think one can ever find the
entirety of Truth. Do you? (That would be the equivilent of expecting to
fathom all the depths of God!) I’ve long since stopped allowing myself to
feel guilty for the questions I ask. Children are allowed to ask questions of
their parents. Why shouldn’t I ask them of my God? I’ve discovered that God is
big enough to handle all my questions.
Why is this idea of seeking out Truth for yourself so important?
It’s not like Truth comes in different breeds, like dogs. Truth is Truth is
Truth. It will never change. What makes finding It for yourself so important is
the journey. Truth may not change, but you will. To quote a good friend of
mine:
I question whether somebody who hasn't questioned themselves in
their own beliefs can really say they carry those beliefs at all.
It's the point where you become a person in your own right, free
from whatever formative influences from your youth. Simply being a
Christian, Hindu, or anything else because that's how you were raised and
nothing more is an insult to yourself, and it lessens what you think you
believe in. That's not any kind of spiritual or intellectual journey at
all, it's an excuse not to take one in the first place.
Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living,"
and I tend to agree with that. Any belief that in your mind and heart
can't endure the rigors of your own questioning hasn't earned your belief at
all, and by the same token once it has, you know in that moment that it's
true. And for people who never went through that process, never took the
time to try and get a handle on what they believe, why they believe, and whether
they want to believe it...that's one of the big reasons they can’t imagine a
thing like faith, and will probably never understand it.
–Exeter, December 2007
It is the testing of what we believe and why that brings
our faith to life. It is the trying of our beliefs in the crucibles of our
minds and hearts that make them tangible. How often do we sit in our seats on
Sunday mornings and listen to a message, nodding in agreement, and accept every
word we hear as true because a pastor said it? Sometimes, we even feel
something stir inside our chest, our pulse picks up and something resonates in
us… our hearts hear the echoes of truth and we get excited. Then, we go home
and turn on the game and… the stirring fades away and we get disappointed. How
often does this happen? How often do we find ourselves simply existing between
random nuggets of truth that are spoon fed to us from a pulpit? Far too often!
Isn’t it better to challenge each message you hear in your heart? To rush home
and study the given Scriptures in context. Don’t allow yourself to swallow
everything put in front of you. Challenge them by going home and opening your
Bibles… God is not going to be offended, I promise.
My challenge to each of you for this coming year is this: Become a
Truth Seeker. Don’t believe everything I say just because I get up here and
teach. Who am I when you have a God you can go to? Who am I? Do I read
different words than your Bibles present to you? No. I teach nothing that you
could not discover for yourself by opening up your Bibles and reading. When you
begin to do that, then call me. We’ll chat.
