belief

I routinely run into people who are so dead set right about some particular belief, some particular facet of the faith.  I hate to say it, but I usually find the experience a bit annoying. 

Now don’t get me wrong, belief is important.  But as a good Methodist, I prefer to follow John Wesley’s advice to “focus on the essentials and on all other matters I think and let think.”

The older I get, I just continue to realize that there is so much that I do not know.  There is so much that we cannot know.  Life is wonderfully mysterious.  God is wonderfully mysterious.  I love to refer to God as “our Father” but that phrase in no way completely captures him.  Nor does the pronoun “him.”  God is so far beyond our thoughts, it is an amazing and ironic twist that we can even know him.  Maybe that is why knowing him is such a special blessing.

We should probably learn to be content with that.  To know God and walk with him, and just understand that in this life there are many things that we cannot know.  And think of our mission in life- is it to get people to believe a whole list of this and that’s?  Or is it to help them find a relationship, a walk, a life with our Father.

When we get all worried about believing right, we get annoying.  When we rest in him and trust in his grace, then we find the life that truly is life.

It’s a beautiful day in God’s world, be sure to see the good.