basics

Jacob and the Angel by Wayne Forte

When a person first decides to follow Christ, there are some basic questions that naturally arise. How do I follow Christ in my daily life? How does following Christ change my attitudes, thoughts, and relationships? What does it mean to trust God? How do I know God's will for my life?

Everyone who chooses to follow Christ will wrestle with these basic questions. But what I'm realizing (again) is that this wrestling is a repetitive, perpetual part of our discipleship. There will never be a point where I can truthfully say that I'm done answering these questions, and if I can there's a problem. The basic questions are, in fact, the only questions, and struggling with their answers is the essence of discipleship.

One of the most paralyzing things in my spiritual life is the defeated feeling that I have still not answered these questions adequately. I get stuck in place, frozen by the fear that I will screw up again and fill in the wrong bubble on my spiritual scantron sheet. Where did I get the idea that this is how it is, how life is, how God is? Not from the Bible, and there's only one other source. It's the familiar voice from the garden, Did God really say...? Satan was the original over-analyzer.

There is something God has been saying to me over and over lately, particularly in the times when fear, confusion, and sadness have crept in and set up camp. Keep walking. Keep walking. That's it. Don't stand there paralyzed, analyzing whether or not you're paralyzed and why and what that means. Take a step, and then another. Keep walking, and keep wrestling with the basic questions of faith. So here I go. Like Jacob, I am limping along my blessed way.