Good afternoon, friends. This is Pastor Don.
I’ve been thinking some about how our concept of God changes over time. For some, this is a frightening thing. They believe that the more our notion of God stays just the same as it was when we were a child, the better Christians we are! They think that to change what they believe is to be unfaithful. I don’t think that is any more healthy than to insist that whatever we believed about how our bodies or the solar system worked when we were 5 is the only right way!
Joan Chittister says: “Life either dwarfs us or grows us. There is no in between. There is no standing still in the spiritual life.” Every crisis and every major life experience is an opportunity to see God more clearly and with less baggage. These things shake us up and bring us face to face with questions we don’t normally consider. it is not spiritually healthy to ignore those questions. The healthy route is to face them and let them grow us up and reshape us and reshape our notion of God. That is the courageous life of the vital Christian. I think it’s the only way to live.
To be sure, this is not always a comfortable experience. Growth often isn’t. But in the long run it is the most rewarding and invigorating way to live.
Let’s Pray: God we can never know you completely. You are too big for our small minds. Help us to have the courage to see you more clearly, I pray. Amen.
