Contemporary Christians often feel Hebrews to be a strange and difficult book. There are, I think, two reasons for this. First, it seems to ramble about and discuss a lot of themes which have never made it into the ‘top ten’ of Christians discussion tops. It begins with a complex discussion of angels; continues with a treatment of what Psalm 95 really meant in talking about ‘entering God’s rest’; moves on to Melchizedek; lists the furniture in the Tabernacle; and ends with an exhortation to ‘go outside the camp’. Well, you see what I mean; were I a betting man, I would lay good odds that none of my readers have found themselves discussing these things over the breakfast table within the last month or two. Small wonder that most people don’t get very far with Hebrews, or let it get very far with them.—NT Wright, Following Jesus, 4

I think he’s probably correct in his assessment. There is a lot going on in the book of Hebrews—and most of the stuff going on is terribly complicated to understand. The arguments are complicated, the exegesis is tricky, and the logic is sometimes a maze of confusion. I’m not suggesting for a minute that I have it figured out entirely. Not at all. That is not to say, on the other hand, that I am completely wordless or thoughtless about this magnificent book.

Exegesis, Patterns, and the Big Idea

What I like to look for when I am reading is patterns: patterns of thought, recurring phrases, foreshadows, double-backs—you know, all those things we were taught to pay attention to when we were learning to interpret writing back in junior high. Reading through the book of Hebrews has given me an opportunity to notice a pattern repeated without fail over and over again in the book at least 14 times in the book. It’s a simple pattern and really helps us understand what the book is about or, at minimum, what small sections of the book are covering.

I add one small caveat: the book does, I believe, have an overarching point. I again agree with Wright who is very careful to write that

The book of Hebrews offers us, quite simply, Jesus. It offers us the Jesus who is there to help because he’s one of us, and has trodden the path before us. It offers us the Jesus who has inaugurated the new covenant, bringing to its fulfillment the age-old plan of God. And it offers us, above all, Jesus the final sacrifice; the one who has done for us what we could not do for ourselves, who has lived our life and died our death, and now ever lives to make intercession for us. (Following Jesus, 10)

Jesus is the Big Idea in Hebrews, without doubt. What I would like to demonstrate is a pattern for how we understand what the smaller arguments in the book of Hebrews and thus how they all tie together to help us understand the bigger argument of Hebrews, viz., that Jesus is enough.

I think if we break up Hebrews into small chunks and see how the author ends each argument then we will begin to understand the greater point he is making within each argument. That is, each argument he makes leads naturally to breaks and conclusions which are set off by key words or phrases. Then all of these smaller arguments, when clumped together, give us a grand picture of Jesus. Throughout the book, leading up to this grand climax, the author has taught us how to live—not leaving theology without a point because all good theology has, ultimately, the point of teaching us how to live because of Jesus. So we learn how to live because of Jesus or what Jesus has said or what Jesus has done and when the book is done, we can say, “Yes, I will join him outside the camp.”

Conformity to Jesus

Barth noted that “Christian speech must be tested by its conformity to Christ.” Unless ‘speech’ is a metaphor for an entire life, then I would expand upon his thought and say that Christian life must also be tested by its conformity to Christ. We have concocted all sorts of ways to judge one another (how often do we go to church, how much money do we give, how much do we serve, etc.), none of them without some merit and some with more demerit, but it seems to me that the best way to examine ourselves, the Bible way, is to judge ourselves and see if we, I, in fact conform to Christ. I’m fairly certain the apostle Paul wrote something to this effect at some point in Romans or Ephesians or both. And this only makes sense given that Paul did definitely write that we are being transformed into the image of Jesus, renewed in the image of our Creator who is Christ Jesus.

So all throughout Hebrews, the author will give frequent pauses, after short or lengthy expositions of Old Testament Scripture, and say something like, “OK, here’s a conclusion. I just said this and that, therefore, here’s how to check yourselves against what I just wrote.” Or, “OK, I just said this and this about Jesus, now, therefore, here’s the way you ought to be conducting yourselves.” He does this over and over again; I count at least 14 times where this pattern is used. The key, if you are reading in English, is to find the word ‘therefore’. In our English translations, this word will signify the need for the reader to pause and consider what has just been read. It’s a good exercise in exegesis that when you see the word ‘therefore’ to ask what it is there for.

Two final thoughts. First, this is not an artificial pattern I have laid across the book of Hebrews based upon English words usage. There are in the Greek at least five ways of expressing ‘therefore’ in the book of Hebrews—and the author uses them to mix it up for us and keep us on our toes, but I think the point is always the same, that is, to get us thinking about how to apply theology to living for and conforming to Jesus. They are: dia touto; othen; oun; dio; and two inferential particles: toinun and toigaroun. In most cases where these words appear in Greek, the English word supplied is ‘therefore’—so the translators have seen the pattern too and been consistent. (I will note which Greek word is used in the text in the sections below.)

Second, there are many instances where these words appear and they are connected not with us, but with God or Jesus. I am only noting the references that speak to us, although at some point it might be helpful to see how these words also relate to God or Jesus. I found, however, that when they are used with reference to Jesus or God they are often translated as ‘and so’ or ‘then’ or something along those lines.

Since this could be a rather long process, and I don’t want to gloss over any of the references, I will only mention just one in this first post and then, in follow up posts later on, I will supply the balance. I think the pattern will be evident to you and you will probably find the pattern even before I have finished writing this series of posts.

Therefore, Pay Attention

I noted in a previous post on the book of Hebrews that a key feature of the book is that God speaks. The opening verses of Hebrews clearly tell us, “…God spoke…in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” We are left with no misunderstanding: from the get-go God is interested in communicating with his people. Not only does God want us to hear, but he wants us to understand. He has condescended to us, taken up our language, and communicated to us in ways that we can understand.

In these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son. This Son—well, he is overwhelming, no? He is the radiance of God’s glory, the exact character of God. He sustains all things by his rema, his Word. He provided purification for sins. He sat down at the right hand of God (another very important theme traced through Hebrews (see 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2). This Jesus is superior to angels. This Jesus is worshiped. It is the throne of Jesus that will last. This Jesus is amazing beyond all our imaginations in what He accomplished, in who He is, in what He is doing, and how he has saved us.

And God spoke to us in Jesus.

Therefore (dia touto) we must (dei) pay attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away (2:1). Therefore actually stands first in the sentence. It is key: we pay attention because of who this Jesus who spoke is, and because of what he did, and because of what he has done. This is not a random conjunction: therefore is there for a reason. So God spoke. God has spoken. God has spoken in Jesus. God has spoken in Jesus finally. God has spoken in Jesus finally and Jesus is the Son of God…and therefore we must pay attention. We pay attention so we do not drift away, so that we do not miss the salvation offered—the salvation testified to by God’s Holy Spirit, announced to us by Jesus, and witnessed by his people. We must pay attention. The author is not really giving us room to wiggle around and decide if we want to pay attention. If we are the church and we have ears to hear, we must (dei) pay attention. It’s not optional.

Now the author of Hebrews will wrap this up later too (see 12:25; 13:7) and demonstrate how those who speak the Word of God are following closely in the footsteps of Jesus and continuing the long line of prophets who did the same (see 3:5; 11:4; 12:24 among others). God’s message, culminating finally in Jesus, has been consistent from the beginning. So how important is this? On the one hand, we are to pay attention to what we have heard (from Jesus? From God? From prophets? From preachers?) If we do, we will prevent ourselves from drifting away. How important is it, then, to pay attention to the Word of God? I like a similar passage from Ephesians:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-15)

The whole point of ‘paying attention’ is in order for Christ to created or imaged in us. When we drift from the word, we become less like Him. When we pay attention to what God has said, we are moving in a direction God has planned for us all along: the maturity and fullness of Jesus—the people of God, the image of God in humanity, true humanity, true Israel. This is the goal of the Word of God. It teaches us how to be like Jesus, why we should be like Jesus, how God makes us like Jesus, and how this has been his goal from before the foundations of the world (see Ephesians 1, 2, and 5; Philippians 2; Colossians). If we miss what God is saying to us, who else will tell us? If we neglect what God is saying to us, who else will save us or what salvation will be left for us? “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (3:7, 15; 4:7).

I think also this explains the importance of faithful, biblical, expository preaching. Remember, if we are to listen to Jesus in chapters 1 and 2, the author is not shy to tie it up later in chapters 12 and 13 by telling us to pay attention to our leaders who preach and teach. He warns us not to ‘be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching’ (13:9). There will be a lot of efforts made by the enemy to distract us and tear our attention away from what matters to God: that we hear him speak, that we hear his word, that we pay attention to what he says, and that in hearing and paying attention, we become like Jesus in all ways—even so far, says the author of Hebrews, that ‘we go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore’ (13:13).

William Willimon wrote:

Faithful preaching thus inevitably involves the preacher’s resistance against the tendency of the church to want to contain and stabilize God. Church furniture tends to be heavier than it needs to be, large, bolted to the floor. Church buildings tend to be build mot substantially than is necessary. Perhaps this comes from the church’s inchoate knowledge that it is the nature of this God’s word to cause oaks to whirl, to shake the foundations, ripping doors of their hinges (Psalm 29; Acts 2). Therefore, preaching is a perfect medium for the communication of this God because of its fragility, it orality, its lack of stability, and its resistance to duplication and definition. (Conversations with Barth on Preaching, 175)

Yeah, just imagine if this God and this God’s word actually got a hold of us in a Sunday sermon!

But I don’t think many want to hear such things in the church today. As one who has been on both sides of the pulpit, I can faithfully testify that preachers cannot preach this because they won’t soon have jobs if they do. That sounds harsh, but I submit that if we truly paid attention to what Scripture is saying about Jesus, about life, about our destiny in Christ, our churches would be a lot emptier than they are. That’s not the goal, but I think it’s the truth (see John 5, 6).

Finally

Therefore pay attention: So that you will not drift away.

Therefore pay attention: How shall we escape if we ignore it (2:2; 12:25)? And if this is God’s last word to us, his eschatological word in these last days, what else can we expect?

Therefore pay attention: This salvation was announced by the Lord; confirmed by those who heard him; and testified to by God through gifts of the Holy Spirit.

He tells us to pay attention because the result of not paying attention is drifting. Drifting has the idea of slowly moving away, gradually moving away from that which tethers us to truth—in this case, Jesus. This, I submit, is what those who are mentioned throughout this book were commended for: Moses, Melchizedek, Abel, Abraham, and all the rest. The essence of faith is paying attention to Jesus, keeping our eyes fixed upon the One who spoke, the one who died, and the one who finished the work God gave him to finish (‘sat down’ carries the idea of completion of work). Those who do will have no problem joining him outside the camp and bearing his disgrace.

And, to make matters worse, the book of Hebrews is written to the church. Why would the author of Hebrews have to write to the church and say to them, “Therefore, pay attention”? Do you think it is because the church is always in danger of not listening, not paying attention? Do you think it is because the church is always in danger of drifting?

Strange, that.

“The story of Easter is thus a prophetic story of the way in which this God will not keep silent (Luke 24; John 20), will not let the conversation (the argument?) between God and humanity be ended simply because of the sin of humanity, will not be defeated by human intransigence. The Risen Christ comes back to the very ones who betrayed the Crucified Jesus, came back to them and resumed the conversation. This is the hope upon which every church is built, the hope upon which every sermon is preached: Christ comes back to his betrayers and talks to them.”(—William Willimon, Conversations with Barth on Preaching, 145)

I have been stuck in the book of Hebrews. I suppose calling it a book is a bit of a stretch since it’s really a letter. It’s a brilliant letter and every time I open its pages I come across something more that I hadn’t noticed on the previous visit. Every time I read this letter, I fall more in love with it. It is so deep, so massive, and so theologically profound that even a surface reading leaves one overwhelmed and in awe. I wish I had discovered this letter sooner in life, but I confess that its depth was enough to persuade me, when I was younger, to avoid it.

At first glance, yes, Hebrews is complicated stuff. In fact, if you have not spent significant time reading through the Old Testament—especially the books of Leviticus and Exodus—you might as well avoid reading Hebrews for a while. Yet I discovered a long time ago that there’s a simpler way to understand the various books of the Bible. Usually, not always, but usually, the author gives us a hint at his purpose in the opening of the book or letter. I think Hebrews is very much like that. So: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors [in] the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” When reading the book of Hebrews, it is imperative we listen to what God is saying to us. It seems to me that the author could have started anywhere, but he begins by exhorting us to hear the voice of God which spoke first in the prophets and lastly in Jesus.

It almost seems too simple to say that the book of Hebrews is about this God who speaks to us, but I think that is a pretty good place to start. And it goes a little further, too, when we see that the author has attached his own prophetic voice as the natural successor of Jesus—not that he adds to anything Jesus said, but that he continues proclaiming the message of Jesus. I note that four times (at least) we are told to pay attention to our leaders, to those who speak to us the Word of God. In fact, this idea forms an inclusion for the entire book: “We must pay careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (2:1) and “See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven” (12:25; cf. 13:7). I suspect, however, that in many cases this idea has been quite lost on us rebels. Many think we don’t need to listen to leaders who expound the Scripture—as if their job is something else. And, to be sure, many leaders take this as a carte-blanche excuse to wield all sorts of ungodly power over the church. We need not look far for examples.

We have to pay attention. But it’s terribly important for us to note who we listen to first. Hebrews is very careful to note that we first listen to God who spoke in Jesus. God spoke in the past in the prophets, in the last days he spoke in Jesus—but regardless of whether it was the first days or the last days, it was God speaking in them and the message was consistent. The continuity between then and now is that it was God speaking. His message was consistent too (see Hebrews 3:5). We have to listen to him who spoke—which is, I think, easy enough to discern: He who spoke is God in Jesus (1:2-3). We are not to refuse Jesus who speaks to us. Why? Because he has spoken to us by Jesus ‘in these last days.’ There is an eschatological element to our listening and to his speaking. We ignore his voice at our own peril: we will drift away, we will not escape, there is no voice left for us if we ignore his voice. God has nothing else to say save for Jesus; that is, Jesus is the last word from God on matters of salvation. Consider the further words of chapter 2:

“For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will” (Hebrews 2:2-4).

What was announced by Jesus was God’s salvation. If we ignore the message proclaimed by Jesus, confirmed by those who heard, and testified to by God through signs and wonders, what other hope do we have? In the context of the letter to the Hebrews what we find is that this final message of Jesus in these last days concerning salvation is far superior to anything it is compared to. It is superior to the message spoken by the prophets (1:1), superior to the message spoken by angels (2:2), superior to the message spoken by Moses (3:5), superior to the message spoken by Joshua (4:8), superior to the message spoken by the sacrifices (10:5), and superior to the message of Abel’s blood (11:4; 12:24). There is nothing that compares with the voice of Jesus: he has spoken, we must listen; we ignore him to our own peril and disaster. (In fact, the word ‘better’ (Gk. kreitton) is a significant word in Hebrews, 1:4; 6:9; 7:7, 19, 22; 8:6; 9:23; 10:34; 11:16, 35, 40; 12:24). Everything about Jesus and his last word is, finally, better than anything that preceded it or anything that might follow it.

This is the message we first hear in Hebrews: Listen to God who has spoken, finally, superiorly in Jesus. There is not one other voice speaking of these great salvation matters that we need bother listen to: who can speak of these things which God speaks? Who can add to what God has spoken? And if he has spoken in these last days, what word is left for us who hear? “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the Law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” The consequences for rejecting the message are, in fact, severe.

This is the thing about the Bible in general and, here, Hebrews in particular: God speaks; loudly. He will say later in Hebrews too: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (3:7, 15; 4:7). The message of God, the Word of Jesus, the testimony of the Holy Spirit is consistently the same: “I am crying out to you to be saved, I am undertaking the hard work of speaking to you in the hopes that you will hear and listen.” Can we even begin to imagine life apart from God’s Voice? (Have you ever thought about how many times we are told in the Bible that God speaks?)

God spoke, and worlds were created.

God spoke, and worlds were shaken.

God spoke, and mountains collapsed.

God spoke, and kings were undone.

God spoke, and tyrants trembled.

God spoke, and prophets’ mouths were stopped.

God spoke, and prophets were animated.

God spoke, and nations came into being.

God spoke, and shepherds became kings.

God spoke, and cities fell.

God spoke, and salvation was revealed!

Have you ever noticed how much God accomplished, accomplishes, with the shear force of his voice? God spoke, in the beginning and in the last days. It is the voice of God that rings throughout time. I’m ironically struck dumb by this idea that God spoke. Only a God who is a God who reaches down to us speaks to us. And it is no nonsense he speaks: from the beginning he spoke to us of his redemptive purposes (Genesis 3:15). This has been the loud and clear message God has spoken and still speaks.

The alternative connection to what is ultimate is, of course, revelation. In this view, it is not the human being reaching up to seize the meaning of life, or gazing into itself for that meaning, but God reaching down to explain life’s meaning. In this understanding, there can be no speaking of God, no speaking of meaning, before his speaking to us is heard. (David F Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, 203-204)

That’s what Hebrews points us to over and over again: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts—is the same message to us today as it was to the Israelites then.

“When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” (Matthew 28:17)

I like to wonder sometimes exactly what life was like ‘inside the narratives.’ Man, I have been reading these stories in the Bible since I learned how to read. Trouble with me is that I have never spent a day outside the church. There’s never been a doubt. That’s not to say I didn’t wander at times-for large swaths of time. It is to say, however, that ‘church’ has always been my life. I knew, or at least had inklings, that I would be a preacher from a very early age of my life (like around the age of 6 or 7 when I ‘preached’ to my school bus driver one day after another student got all excited about finding a dollar bill on the floor.) So I like to wonder and wander. I stay near the center, but like one of our bloggers here says, I try to stay close enough to the edge to matter.

I mean it must have been crazy living in those days and experiencing what they experienced. Who can understand it? All of the sudden a man walks up to John the Baptist and asks to be baptized. The next day John points at him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God!” which is something closer to, “Hey, you people, you people, wake the hell up and look at the One God has provided! Shake yourselves out of your stupor and Look at this One among you! If you can believe it, if you can accept it: The Lamb of God!” I’m sure not a few laughed a serious belly laugh that day. If the eleven could stand on the mountain with Jesus after his death, burial, and resurrection and doubt what they saw then imagine how it must have been for those that day when John simply said, “Behold!”

“They worshiped…some doubted.” Doubted. Indeed. They worshiped; some doubted. Yet none were excluded, all were commissioned. And Jesus, perhaps not ironically, didn’t condemn them for doubting.

Commenting on the book The Resurrection of the Body LaVonne Neff writes, “This, I think, is the book’s chief charm: it re-creates some of the bewilderment people surely felt in Jerusalem during the weeks following Jesus’ crucifixion.” Bewilderment? That’s an understatement. She titled her book review “Giving Up Certainty for Lent.” When I first saw it I thought, “Ha!” Then I wondered, “Do I have the courage to give up certainty…forever…until at last my eyes behold him?”

But you know what? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Struggling mightily to overcome something inside that has stirred up all sorts of strange feelings and ideas. And I cannot (overcome it). It’s that perpetual ‘what if?’ I don’t like it because, and this is the truth: I don’t have the courage to doubt. I like certainty, knowing. I like the world devoid of doubt. I don’t like uncertainty. I don’t like thinking: Oh my God, what if I am wrong? What if my wrong is too much? What if I am not right enough? Of course, this is where grace comes in and rescues us. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to outrun grace. I can’t. I. Can’t.

You know how much courage it must have taken for those disciples standing right next to the resurrected Jesus to worship and doubt? Sadly, we have made it the job of theologians and preachers and apologists to work hard, ever so hard, to go about erasing all those doubts instead of creating a space where that worship and those doubts are held in tension. We feel like we need to fill the void that exists between worship and doubt. Jesus said, “You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” What he didn’t say is, “Blessed are those who have the courage to eliminate all doubts in order to believe” (John 13:29). But Jesus also said, “Stop doubting and believe” (John 13:27). Yet, Matthew 28:17 evidently occurs after this exhortation. I’m not interested in the nature of or the reason for their doubt. All I know is that Matthew had the courage to tell us that even those theological behemoths had the courage to doubt–standing right next to Jesus no doubt.

William Willimon wryly notes, “God is proved only by God’s speaking, not through natural theology arguments of God’s existence. Since the unbeliever lacks the one requisite for true knowledge, that is, faith, there is no wonder why apologetics, which tries to get around the need for faith, doesn’t work. Where God fails to convince the unbeliever, there is little that we can do to convince” (Conversations with Barth on Preaching, 178). That’s not all. It gets worse, far worse:

“The only means we have of making sense of the gospel is Christ. Apologetics tends to speak and reason as if the cross and resurrection of Christ were incidental to comprehension of what we have to say, as if Christian claims can be comprehensible even if one rejects the Christian world. In other words, if we ever devised an effective apologetics that enabled us to present the Christian faith without recourse to a God who speaks for himself, then all we would have done is, through our apologetics, convinced people that there is no God who speaks. To put it in another way, apologetics is a sort of backhanded way of saying that what we believe about God is not really true. We have no weapon to defend Christ; he can only defend himself. We have no weapon to defend Christ; he can only defend himself. We have no ‘knock down’ arguments for Christ; he himself is the only argument” (Conversations, 178)

What? Not one? Upon what shall I base my, uh, belief then? Faith? Pshaw! Thus the door is open to doubt. And doubt opens the door to faith. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God” and “the righteous one will live by faith.”

I have a confession to make: I wish I had that kind of faith. That is, I wish I had the courage to doubt. I wish I had the intestinal fortitude to doubt, say, the literal reading of certain books of the Bible. Part of the ongoing experiment that God undertook when he called me was to lead me to the sort of faith that gives me the courage to doubt. In this I have discovered why I went from being an avid reader and cheerleader for certain blogs to fierce opponent: that which is based upon absolute certainty is not based on faith; that which has all the answers has not asked enough questions, let alone the right questions; that which knows and sees beyond doubt cannot be that which lives by faith or perhaps has passed on from this world already. Only that which is found in confusion, perplexity and doubt can truly be said to be that which is by faith. It’s like believing in bodily resurrection and still having the courage to be cremated. It’s like believing in bodily resurrection, being cremated, and still having the courage to have your ashes scattered in the wind.

I guess even that kind of faith has courage to face death doesn’t it?

You know where certainty comes from though, right? It comes from fear: Bold, unashamed, unmitigated fear. It comes from the sort of fear that actually prevents us from growing. It is the sort of fear that stagnates us, leaves us on the plateau of certainty. Fear is, I’m convinced, the catalyst for works righteousness and the complete abandonment of faith as life and grace as salvation. Fear believes it is saved because of certainty. Faith believes it is saved in spite of doubts.

Doubts don’t arise from fear, but faith. I’m not talking about the sort of doubt that leads to apostasy or blasphemy. I’m talking about the sort of doubt that can only lead to faith. I’m talking about the sort of faith that doesn’t resort to mere apologetics but is willing to live in the place between worship and doubt, between seeing and not seeing, between wisdom and foolishness, between weakness and strength.

I have a confession to make. God is leading me there and the journey is not easy and not without resistance from me. I like certainty. I like answers. I like knowing. I told someone in a thread the other day, “I’m not confused at all.” Well, that was a lie I told to cover up all sorts of fears, not to cover up all sorts of doubts. I wish now I hadn’t said that. Doubt is not sin. Doubt doesn’t necessarily lead to death, but perhaps it does lead to a deeper faith in the One who overcomes death.

God is leading me to a place where I don’t have to be right. He is leading me to a place where I can be wrong. He is leading me to the place where He is, to Jesus. Being courageous enough to doubt, to live in uncertainty, to not know all the answers, is the courage to live in His grace and find it sufficient. Doubt, then, is the catalyst for salvation by grace, and grace alone.

You could say I lost my faith in science and progress
You could say I lost my belief in the holy church
You could say I lost my sense of direction
You could say all of this and worse but

If I ever lose my faith in you
There’d be nothing left for me to do.