God loves an honest question

"God loves an honest question."
Athol Dickson. Gospel according to Moses, The: What My Jewish Friends Taught Me about Jesus (p. 17). Kindle Edition.

I picked up The Gospel According to Moses: What My Jewish Friends Taught Me about Jesus today. I first started reading it about 6 months ago and got wrapped up in some other books. I love that this is bringing me back to a concept I first discovered this summer, wrestling with God. I have no plans to wrestle like Jacob did, but I really want to learn how to ask God the questions He WANTS me to ask Him.

Dickson doesn't take long to get to the heart of the matter as he discusses a time in his life when he had abandoned his faith "because it seemed I had no right to question the difficulties, much less expect answers. I had been taught to accept readymade dogma rather than to personally take my doubts to God." I'm not sure about you, but I can identify with this. I was raised in an evangelical Christian home and approaching God with my questions, ready to admit that I don't have the answers and that He does, is a whole lot different faith choice than my previous mindset. I'm not going to blame my upbringing, or those who tried to impart spiritual wisdom to me over the course of my life, for not explaining this to me sooner. They probably did, or at least tried to, and my own shortcomings kept me from seeing the truth that has been in front of me for so long.

"Wrestling with God" feels foreign and I'll admit that I'm approaching this with some fear and trembling, for even though I'm learning that it's OK, even spiritually healthy, it still feels like I need to be on the look out for stray lightening bolts. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in feeling that way and Dickson addresses this in explaining how he learned "I too must never fear to ask, but like Abraham, I must also remember that every time I approach the Lord I come with empty hands. God owes no answers and does not respond to ultimatums. Indeed, one sure way to receive the haunting answer of silence is to frame my questions as demands."

I'm excited to have started reading this book again, and will work a little harder to make sure I keep reading it this time. I'm heading back to school in a few weeks. As I've made me way through the past couple years, the one "thought about my future" that kept coming back to me was a desire to learn more about my faith and the foundations of it. In a couple of weeks I hope to be sitting in a classroom at Spring Arbor University starting down the path toward a second major, this one in Biblical Studies.

As I head back into the classroom, I'm excited to begin a journey to better find "the Creator of the universe on hands and knees, a proud Daddy talking baby talk to all humanity, a God who has become man so that I can better understand his answers."