God Confusion

"Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything."
                                                         Gregory of Nyssa

As I have learned to listen more and more with each passing day, it has been revealed to me that there is a lot of what I call, 'God Confusion.'
There are many, even those whom we would believe are strong Christians, have only a basic, superficial knowledge of the God they claim to serve. There are many who are a mile wide and an inch deep, as the old preachers use to say.
While every doctrine may very well be an imperfect description of a perfect God; I have found that even with the most basic teachings of the faith, a vast majority remains largely ignorant.

What we see today is many Christians using the same vocabulary while also using different dictionaries.
Many do not know why they don't believe in some things nor why they do believe in other practices. When it comes to baptism, people are no longer concerned with the reason for the concepts of believer's baptism as opposed to infant baptism; they'll just simply say, 'ya'll baptize funny.'

And when confronted with 'churchy' words and practices, the world, who knows nothing about what Christians do or mean, become largely confused.
As they become more and more confused about us, it is even more true that they become confused about God.

Those that are in our churches, when they hear and can't understand - it become a problem.
We're talking about people who struggle with depression, who are hampered by an addiction, who have problems that aren't exactly normal. When they can't understand, it's worse.
The reason is because they don't blame the pastor nor the church; they blame themselves for being confused about the God we worship.
Truly - What does a 'relationship with God' mean?

All relationships in life that we have, we have an idea of what to expect in them. 
With God, especially with so much confusion about Him, many do not know what to expect.
When we look at Job or Jeremiah or John the Baptist, we wonder why they endured what they endured. It also spurns the question in our minds, 'What exactly can we count on God for?'

Sigmund Freud accused the church of teaching only the questions it could answer. 
Well, that's not what I see in Scripture.
The hard questions of God are dealt with in Ecclesiastes, with Job's life and in prophets such as Habakkuk. And the questions of God they pose cannot easily be answered.

God has always known what we know now, when we only focus on spiritual successes and never highlight a failure, it makes it much worse for those struggling men and women in the church pew.
The truth is that the Christian life is not meant to be lived by a person sitting alone all day thinking about the Christian life.
No - it is a walk, a way of life; for us that means sometimes we will stumble, struggle and even fail.

When Jesus spoke of 'eating' His flesh and 'drinking' His blood, the people to whom He spoke were repulsed by the very thought. 
It was so offensive, many who had been followers of Christ up to that point, left.
As they did, Jesus turned to the disciples and asked, 'You do not want to also go away, do you?'
Peter answered, 'To whom would we go?'
In effect, Peter and the disciples were in agreement that they had no where to go except to Jesus.

With all the confusion with God, the same question could be asked of the average man or woman in the pew. Why do we stick around?
Well, the answer is still the same as well: 'Where would we go?'
The only thing harder than a difficult relationship with God is not having one at all.

While it is true that Christians have faith types just as we have personality types, one universal truth should always be remembered among the brethren: Jesus always works with whatever faith is given.
Faith will appear in people when you least expect it, so we should never discount anyone.
On the same note, we should always be willing to give God whatever meager faith we have so that He can work His miracles through our lives.

The truth is that we don't always have to understand; sometimes we are confused about what God is doing and why. But our understanding has never meant near as much as our faith in Him.

Until next time, try to win one for the good guys.