My soul clings to you,Your right hand upholds me.
Truth is not afraid of questions. Listening to questions people have should not dishearten us. I have found though; we don’t like how this process disquiets us. So, we might be quick to come to conclusions or find answers that don’t adequately address the question. I’ve been thinking about the movement of Deconstructionism, where people struggle with questions about Christianity and often leave the faith. I see two things happening. As someone is going through this process, there are not a lot of resources. The questions they have are difficult and deep and cannot be answered quickly. But because it is uncomfortable that is often what happens. They are given foolish answers that don’t even come close to addressing the questions they have. Because it is comfortable those giving these answers walk away thinking they have done their job. Maybe they think the person is stubborn. But really it is them that feel more comfortable walking on the other side of the road. Not many want to go into the trenches with them and stay there however long it takes. We don’t want to feel the struggle and the questions that it will create for ourselves. We don’t want to feel the weariness of wrestling through these questions.
Because this is a deep emotional place, one seeks relief. For someone who is honestly struggling with these questions, a quick foolish answer will only make the wound deeper. Their questions are real, and our answers need to be real. If you are seeking relief, there are those who will say, look at the foolish answers you have been given and by the way here are even more questions, the answer is not wrestling with the questions, but walking away from the questions all together, walking away from Christianity. The problem is that these also are quick and foolish answers to the questions people are having. They don’t answer the questions, only say they don’t exist. I have never come across an argument from this side that does not rely on poor scholarship or logic to make its point. The arguments look awesome on the surface, but only if you remain on the surface. But when you’re tired and in pain, these answers though foolish, provide relief. And many settle for relief, because they have already tried the church and have nowhere else to go. Relief is better than the quick foolish answers that make the wound deeper.
And this is the problem, we don’t like going deep when it is uncomfortable for us. We don’t like wrestling because it wears us out. In the end, we want relief and comfort more than we want Truth. We want both, but if we have to settle for one . . . . And once we have relief, we close our eyes and ears and mind. This is human nature.
But true healing comes when we lose our life and abandon comfort. Love requires it. Wresting is up close and personal, extremely intimate. The reality is we all have a lot of baggage to wrestle through. Wrestling feels like the opposite of rest but is necessary to find it. We must strive in order to find rest. Love enters in and wrestles with us, cutting away at the lies and our baggage, but not only the lies, but the places where we lack love, where we don’t love others well. We can only find rest in truth and love, and so we must wrestle.
Hebrews 4:11–13 calls us to find this rest, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. “
And Love, the intimacy of wrestling will bring healing. Gold and silver are refined in fire. It is the same with us. Let us not settle for temporary comforts that ignore our questions. Let us seek Truth and grab on to Love with confidence. And let us not let others walk alone, not looking for quick answers, but walking in this journey together.
