Struggle… the good kind…

(Some thoughts from a post I responded to at Todd Rhodes’ excellent site, Monday Morning Insight.)

I can’t stand the thought, anymore, of believeing something “easily”… I would rather struggle. I admit to “struggling” with many basic Christian doctrines. I still believe them, but I struggle with them. I admit it.

I struggle with the idea from Scripture that God only gives us what we can handle. I’ve seen people go through what seems like a lot more than they can handle, at least to me, so although I believe what Scripture tells me, I struggle with it. I wrestle with it, like Jacob did with the angel, getting him a new name that reflects that struggle, a name that the entire nation that comes from him bears to this day.

To blindly believe in something, or say that you do merely because you have intellectual assent to it but don’t actually “wrestle” with what it means, is no kind of faith, or at least no kind of biblical faith, at all, imho.

For instance… I struggle with the idea of Hell. I admit it. The thought that a loving God will send people I love to Hell is very hard for me to accept. I believe it, but anyone who says they believe it and it doesn’t “hurt” to, is either lying or heartless. I know all the scriptures and all the reasons, I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and it is more a struggle for me to believe that there is a Hell and reconcile how I live my life in front of people because of that… than to just not believe in a literal Hell at all, which is far easier…

It is harder, a deeper struggle, to believe, really believe, in Jesus, than not to. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Leaves and greed…

So I’m using my leaf blower to clear my lawn and driveway of leaves yesterday, and for just a moment, my mind wanders off to all the gear that I could buy to make this job easier, one of those real cool lawn “vacuums” or maybe a big old Tractor with a leave raking attatchment, or a bigger better leaf blower, or… you get the picture.

Fast forward to you or me driving and seeing the brand new Ford Dream-mobile or whatever and thinking how much cooler we would be if we were driving that. Thinking of just trading in the 3-year old car for a new one even before I’m done paying it off, and then I end up being upside-down in a car loan for years and years… Oh well, I guess I’ll wait for the 2009 models…

Fast forward to me in a Christian bookstore thinking how much I really need every one of those Bible reference books to be really smart, or every single book by every author mentioned in the last book I read, or maybe because my Study Bible is the four-year old version, surely if I bought the new improved one… I’d be more knowledgeable, or more holy, or more informed, or {you fill in the blank}…

What is it with me, with you, with us? We always want more. And we get it, and still want more. I think it is so cool to know that someday, when we’re with Jesus forever in Heaven, that we won’t want anything more, not because we are going to have everything, but just because we don’t want anything… There IS a difference.