Maybe I'm sounding like a broken record -- maybe not -- but my thought on the way to work this morning is: There are so many things about God that are confusing -- so many things that are debated about God not only between Christians and other faiths -- but also within Christianity. I think when you look at the story of Adam & Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good & evil it makes sense why we have the confusion. It's the first time that they were told that they could be like God -- they could know learn on their own without God's help -- they could be their own God. Since man from the time of Adam has had this obsession with figuring things out on their own -- and when man tries to figure out the infinitely higher and wiser God -- there is going to be a lot of frustration and confusion. My worldview lately has been that of the analogy that we have all been poisoned by sin. We all have this poison inside of us -- Adam and Eve were infected by the poison and they've passed it down from generation to generation all the way to us.
We have these ideas that if we learn enough, if we keep on studying, we'll get it figured out. We will know who God is and how he thinks and how everything works. I'm not turning into a relativist, because I do believe there are some fundamental things about God that are knowable when you look throughout history how God has made Himself known, but I also believe that God doesn't leave some things a mystery for some reason. I believe that some things about God we just can't comprehend with out little human brains.
My theory is that we have so many varied beliefs about God -- different religions -- different sects of Christianity -- because we hold on so tightly to our human understanding and our obsession with study and knowledge and getting it all figured out. We all have pride in what we think we know is the truth. When we rely on our own reasoning to figure out God we can end up with really bad human reasoning and understanding. When we yield to God and plead and beg for him to show himself to us, I think we are at a good place to study and reason to learn more about him. I know that I'm guilty of this -- I love to read, study, contemplate etc. My favorite form of worship is reading and learning about God. I don't spend enough time in prayer and/or asking God to show me truth about him as I study and seek Him.
Please pray for me and for those you love that we can all give our questions, confusions and frustrations to God, and that we ask him to sort them out for us instead of obsessing about doing it ourselves. One promise that I hold on to in the Bible is that if we seek God, we will find him.
