Monday, April 30, 2012
Things I wish I'd known
I was wondering yesterday, what did I wish people had told me at the beginning of my Christian faith? Anyone out there with any thoughts, please let me know. I'd be keen to see a 'Christianity for Dummies' guide, although I'm sure there already is one.
*Pause while Rob Googles....*
Yes, there is. Also a raft of sites that claim Christianity is FOR dummies. Oh dear.
Anyway, what do we wish people had told us? What would we go back and tell ourselves?
In many ways this is a poignant question for me as this is my second go at Christianity, having met Jesus as a teenager but run away from it all on a gap year. I have a pretty firm grasp of some of the changes there have been in my Christianity between then and now that make it, for the moment at least, a more vibrant and viable faith.
I'll put them up later this week, I just wondered what you all thought first.
Please comment.
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Rob, not quite the simplistic bullet points you were after but here are my random thoughts in response to your interesting question...
ReplyDelete1)I wish someone had told me that God has an amazing sense of humour and wants happiness to be shared around the world.
2)I wish someone had told me to trust my judgement and my emotions in faith the same way I trust them to survive: so when I make friends, share laughter or sense fear. I think there were a lot of times when I sensed God might be working in my life but kept shifting the goal posts 'just to check'. I have a quite pragmatic approach to faith and life and do a sense check - I have no wish to be brain washed - I question pretty much everything intently, so why should I be reluctant to trust myself in faith when I trust my judgement implicitly in so many other areas of life?
3) I wish i'd known that being a Christian,or starting to explore the Christian faith doesn't mean that you have to think the same way that anybody calling themself a Christians does. There are lots of amazing people who will share experiences, or knowledge of what they believe to be God at work in their life. Some of this will be incredibly valuable, but sometimes it doesn't resonate. In the same way that when you meet people outside of faith, some people you click with, others you don't - you won't instantly connect with everybody who is a christian. Don't expect to, but don't let it hold you back. Don't be definied by other peoples faith. I like to remember that Christians are individuals too.
4) I wish I'd been told not to be put off by the terminology of faith. I now realise that you can choose the terms of expressions you are comfortable with and as faith grows your understanding of terms will change too. Sometimes it's the meaning we assign to specific terns that is wrong and not the terms themselves.
5) I wish someone had told me that each
ReplyDeleteexperience of faith is different. If God is the ultimate creator then he knows what makes each person tick, and what will resonate with them. Stand 10 people in the most beautiful place on earth and they will probably pick out a different reason why it's beautiful: the sun, the leaves on the tree, the sunset, the moorside, the new lambs skipping about, the lake at the bottom of the valley or the volcano just to the left of the golf course. (ok a little overkill - but you get my drift!) The common denominator in faith is God himself, not the way that faith is experienced by each person. It's an issue that I still struggle with today, if I see someone who seems 'closer' to God and is completely firm in their beliefs it irks me, because i think i must be doing it wrong. There is no one way suits all, which is why I suppose, religion and faith can be seen as devisive or as being something which is made to fit/suit.
6) I wish I had realised that asking the big questions shouldn't stop you from simultaneously seeking God. God can take the big questions. I think it's so important to ask every impossible question of God you can think of. I know I won't get an answer to everything, but if God is real he exists in spite of the hundreds of questions I may never know the answer to in this life time. I'm realising the key thing is to see how God is proving his existence in your life whilst you are asking the other questions.( Again bit of a simplistic analogy) but when you are a tiny child you drink from a bottle because you are thirsty and it tastes good, without knowing the word for bottle, or where it comes from or how it's produced or how it came to be in the bottle in the first place.
7) I wish I had known that God uses people for good exactly as they are with all their flaws. It took me a long time to understand that. God can bring about incredible change in people, but I've been amazed how often he simply uses the skills and gifts that already exist within our personalities for his own purposes, in ways I could never have imagined.
8) My last thought isn't really an "I wish someone had told me" as someone did - but I found it really helpful so I thought i should mention it. It was simply to be told that God loves every single person and to try and figure out what that means. I still haven't completely grasped it and I don't know if I ever will, but that was the key concept that changed the shape of my faith. Until I heard that I had the idea that God was a headmaster; only to be approached under exceptional circumstances, and a creator who was not concerned with the intricacies of daily life. Which differs greatly with my current view. Hoorah :)
Sophie x