"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling..."
I stumbled onto this verse during small group last week. We were talking about Hebrews and this was a secondary "just to prove the point" kind of verse that was thrown in. That last line about "working out your salvation" slapped me in the face. "Working out"? Why, that leads one to believe that it can be entirely possible to be a believer but not know exactly what you're supposed to believe, or why, or what it means. Holy crap! The bible actually allows for loons like myself? How exciting!
I read a blog called "Ordinary Community" by Chris Marshall -- someone I've never met but he works at the same high school in Cincinnati as my sister and her husband and he also knows the pastor of our church here in Maryland. He asks some questions in his post from October 13. The ones that made me cringe were numbers 7-10, which are as follows:
7) Am I more American than I am Christian?
8) Is abortion the only pro-life issue Christ followers should care about?
9) Will I ever improve on the things that I am not good at?
10) Why does my heart feel sad?
These are things I discuss with my good friend Ashley while our boys play in her basement (or while they wrestle in a play area at Ikea). I try to discuss them with Rusty but truth be told, between work, coaching and trying to have family life he's often times not quite as philesophical. Plus, Rusty has this amazing faith -- God says it, he believes it and doesn't ever once look back.
I really want to think about and pray about these questions in my prayer times over the next few days and weeks. I'm hoping that if anyone actually reads this, that you'll bear with me and even add your comments to help me work through this. I feel like there is this big wall in front of me and if I just understand it's structure, I'll be able to move beyond it -- whether it be by knocking that wall down, going around it or finding a door and going through it.
Thanks for allowing the ramble-age, although, this is my blog so I can ramble at will, correct?
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Or maybe as you grow in your faith you slowly take the wall down yourself brick by brick. Being involved with Alpha has helped me slowly lower my wall I'd say. I guess hearing the same basic messages over and over again is very helpful, but seeing lives transformed by nothing more than allowing people to ask whatever questions they want and exploring and finding their answers on their own is quite mind boggling. Still can't figure out why it's so dang simple. Still struggle with #10.
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